The ASEAN Comprehensive Investment Agreement (ACIA) is an ASEAN instrument that aims to enhance the attractiveness of the ASEAN region as a single investment destination. It is expected to result to a more conducive business environment, encourage investors who are not yet in ASEAN to do business in the region, provide greater confidence among current investors in the region to continue and expand their investments, and increase intra-ASEAN investment.

ACIA took effect on 29 March 2012.

To read more about the Agreement click here for the ACIA Guidebook for Businesses and Investors. 

Click here to download the Agreement including its Schedule/Reservation Lists. 

For quick browsing of the ACIA main text, click here.

For quick browsing of the reservations made by the ASEAN Member States, use the ACIA Database below.  

ACIA Database

The database allows users to do a quick search for reservations made by the ASEAN Member States (AMS) under the ACIA.  These are reservations maintained by Member States on the sectors covered for liberalisation, namely: manufacturing, agriculture, fishery, forestry, mining and quarrying, and services incidental services to these sectors.

Reservations are measures that individual AMS maintains at the central or regional level of governments, which do not conform to their National Treatment (Article 5) and Senior Management and Board of Directors (Article 8) obligations under the ACIA.

• The National Treatment obligation means that investors from other ASEAN Member States and their investments will not be discriminated vis-à-vis the domestic/local investors and their investments unless specified in their reservation lists.
• The Senior Management and Board of Directors obligation means a Member State shall not impose any specific nationality requirement for the senior management position unless specified in their reservation lists. 

Click here to learn more about the specifics of the reservations 

How to Use the Search Database

The database grouped the reservations according to three categories: (1) ASEAN country, (2) sector covered for liberalisation under the ACIA, and the (3) level of government to which the reservation applies. Users need to select an entry for each category before clicking the ‘Search’ button.

The sectors covered for liberalisation by the ACIA are Manufacturing, Agriculture, Fishery, Forestry, Mining and Quarrying, and the Services incidental to these sectors. The “All Sector” search reflects the reservations taken by Member States that apply horizontally to all the said sectors. Searches for reservations under each of the above sectors must be complemented with a search for reservations under the ‘All Sector’ category.

Searches that yield no results mean that no reservation applies.