Part I : Ranking of 2006 financial sector reforms and liberalization of ASEAN 10 + 5 economies.

The objective of this study is to motivate the ASEAN 10 + 5 economies to strive for higher levels of economic reforms and liberalization by a system of assessment and ranking. As per previous years’ studies, the NTU-ISEAS framework comprising four main categories each measuring specific aspects of financial reforms and liberalization, is adopted. In the 2006 ranking, the three leading economies are namely Singapore, Hong Kong and Japan. Next in rankings are the emerging economies – South Korea, Malaysia, China, Thailand, Chinese Taipei and Indonesia. Lastly, similar to 2005, Philippines, Vietnam, Cambodia, Myanmar, Lao PDR and Brunei continue to occupy the lowermost in ranking. Subsequent to the overall ranking, the twenty percent strongest indicators for each economy are set forth to aid respective governments in monitoring key competitive aspects of their economy. An extension of this study is presented in “Part II: Critical Assessment of Financial Sector Reforms and Liberalization of ASEAN 10 + 5 Economies”, (Tan et al., 2008) whereby the twenty percent weakest indicators will be further examined