ASEAN Common Time

The ASEAN Common Time (ACT) is a proposal to adopt a standard time for all Association of Southeast Asian Nations member states. It was proposed in 1995 by Singapore, and in 2004 and 2015 by Malaysia to make business across countries easier. The proposal failed because of opposition in Thailand and Cambodia: Thais and Cambodians argued that UTC+08:00 was not really better than UTC+07:00, which is their current time zone.

Currently, there are four different time zones used by ASEAN countries. UTC+06:30 (Myanmar); UTC+07:00 (Cambodia, Laos, Thailand, Vietnam, and western Indonesia); UTC+08:00 (Brunei, central Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, and Singapore); and UTC+09:00 (eastern Indonesia).

The proposal would institute UTC+08:00 as the ASEAN Central Time, putting Myanmar at UTC+07:00, and leaving the less populous eastern Indonesia at UTC+09:00. This would result in the vast majority of the region's people and territory lining up at UTC+08:00—in sync with China, Hong Kong, Macau, Taiwan, and Western Australia, while eastern islands of Indonesia would remain at UTC+09:00—in sync with Japan, South Korea, North Korea, East Timor and Palau.

Some regional businesses have already begun adopting the phrase "ASEAN Common Time", also using the abbreviation ACT, in their press releases, communications, and legal documents. The idea has since been under discussion by ASEAN, with Singapore supporting it strongly.

List

External links

• "Press Statement The First Informal ASEAN Heads of Government Meeting Jakarta". 30 November 1996. Archived from the original (Press release) on 14 February 2006.
• "Joint Communique of The 29th ASEAN Ministerial Meeting (AMM) Jakarta, 20-21 July 1996". Archived from the original on 8 January 2006.
• Abdullah Ahmad Badawi (7 August 2004). "Towards an ASEAN Community". Archived from the original (speech) on 17 October 2004.

See also

• Time in Southeast Asia
  • Myanmar Standard Time
  • Philippine Standard Time
  • Singapore Time
  • Time in Brunei
  • Time in Cambodia
  • Time in Indonesia
  • Time in Laos
  • Time in Malaysia
  • Time in Thailand
  • Time in Vietnam

Notes

References

1. ASEAN
2. Time in Cambodia
3. List of time zone abbreviations
4. ASEAN Free Trade Area
5. Singapore Time
6. Philippine Standard Time
7. UTC+08:00
8. Time in Vietnam
9. Time in Indonesia
10. Accession of East Timor to ASEAN
11. Hong Kong Time
12. ASEAN Summit
13. Enlargement of ASEAN
14. Outline of Singapore
15. Outline of Malaysia
16. Kao Kim Hourn
17. Trade bloc
18. East Asia Summit
19. Outline of Brunei
20. East Timor