SINGAPORE—Licensed Filipino accountants, dentists and doctors may work in other members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), officials said Tuesday.
Southeast Asian economic ministers have signed agreements allowing these professionals to work in each other’s countries.
The ASEAN has already signed similar arrangements covering architects, surveyors, engineers and nurses.
ASEAN ministers on Monday signed the mutual recognition arrangements on accountants, dentists and doctors on the eve of their annual gathering, a statement from the Singapore hosts said.
Under the pacts, ASEAN states will mutually recognize qualifications and standards covering these professionals so they can practice in any ASEAN country.
Facilitate movement
The accords will also ensure that professional standards in an ASEAN state are maintained, monitored and regulated.
The measures to facilitate movement of professionals within the region are part of ASEAN’s efforts toward economic integration, which include easing the flow of goods and services as well as investments.
In December 2006, ASEAN economic ministers signed a mutual recognition agreement on nurses. The signing of the agreement was expected to pave the way for the deployment of more Filipino nurses in the region.
Nurses are among the Philippines’ biggest human resource exports.
Rosalinda Baldoz, Philippine Overseas Employment Administration chief, said a common recognition of each country's professional standards would be beneficial to Filipino doctors, accountants and dentists who want to serve abroad.
ASEAN groups 10 countries with different levels of economic development, ranging from impoverished Laos to high-tech Singapore and the world’s most populous Muslim country Indonesia.
Its other members are military-ruled Burma (Myanmar), oil-rich Brunei, Cambodia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Thailand and Vietnam.
The group aims to achieve a single market and manufacturing base by 2015 to raise ASEAN’s profile in the face of competition from China and India.
ASEAN, a market of about 550 million people, has a gross regional product of US$1.1 trillion and total trade of about $1.6 trillion, Singapore Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong said.
