Regional Automotive Industrial Complementation an Impossible Utopia for South-East Asia?

Despite restless efforts of the five Asean countries, regional complementation in the automotive industry in southeast Asia has not been materialized in the full economical as technological sense. Question marks as faced as reality are : (a) has a failure to be honestly admitted?, (b) has technological handicap been a barrier?, (c) are economical/industrial factors more overweighing in the whole picture ?, and (d) is there real seriousness in the desire for regional complementation ?.

This paper will discuss the above questions, based on information gathered from interview of automotive engineering circles in Malaysia, Thailand, the Philippines, and Indonesia.