Page 64 - ASEAN-EU Dialogue 2018: Regional and Inter-Regional Economic Cooperation: Identifying Priorities for ASEAN and the EU

Table 11.1: Number of Registered Professionals, by Occupation and Country, at February 2016

Country Engineering Architecture Accountancy
ACPE RFPE AA RFA ACPA RFPA
Brunei 6 0 4 0 0 0
Darussalam
Cambodia 30 0 4 0 0 0
Indonesia 746 0 90 0 0 0
Lao PDR 11 0 7 0 0 0
Malaysia 261 5 35 0 0 0
Myanmar 200 0 12 0 0 0
Philippines 174 0 53 0 0 0
Singapore 235 2 78 0 0 0
Thailand 123 0 24 0 0 0
Vietnam 196 0 10 0 0 0
Total 1,483 7 300 0 0 0
Notes: AA: ASEAN Architect; ACPA: ASEAN Chartered Professional Accountant; ACPE: ASEAN Chartered
Professional Engineer; RFA: Registered Foreign Architect: RFPA: Registered Foreign Professional Accountant;
RFPE: Registered Foreign Professional Engineer.
Source: Mendoza and Sugiyarto (2017)

The largest number of registered professionals are the engineers, while the least are accountants.
Indonesia has the largest number of registered engineers, followed by Malaysia and Singapore.
However, registration was not followed with mobility as none of the seven RFPE in Malaysia
and Singapore has actually moved to these countries to practice their profession. Hence, there
were no application to shift to practice in another AMS, despite registration and even though it
has been ten years since the MRA in Engineering Services was signed (Mendoza and Sugiyarto,
2017). It should be cautioned though the data used to indicate the mobility of skilled workers
may not fully capture what is happening in each country since there are serious data gaps in
the mobility of the highly skilled and there are also anecdotal evidence of foreign professionals
working in ASEAN. Similarly, it is also important to test if ASEAN initiatives have
contributed to the actual movement, however small.

Challenges in Implementation and Practice
Several studies have examined the reasons for the lack of mobility in ASEAN in practice,
despite the initiatives and on-going implementation efforts. These studies indicate two main
challenges are encountered in moving professionals around the AMS, despite the excess
demand prevailing in each country: namely regulatory and non-regulatory barriers.

Regulatory Barriers
In practice, there are strong domestic regulatory barriers in each AMS that restricts the
movement of skilled workers. Papademetriou et. al. (2015) lists a sample of these such as
constitutional provisions reserving particular occupations for nationals; complex and opaque
requirements and procedures for employment visas, including limits on spousal employment
of the highly skilled, restrictions on sectors or occupations in terms of the number foreign
professionals and skilled manpower allowed, economic and labour market tests to show that
there are no locals available for these sectors or occupations, localisation requirements over
time, and local language proficiency. Table 11.2 indicates some of these requirements for the
medical profession, but it is not confined to these professions only.

58