In the framework of the 95th ASEAN Coordinating Committee on Services (CCS95) meeting held at REX Hotel – Ho Chi Minh City from 2 to 6 March 2020, hosted by Vietnam (Chaired by Ministry of Planning and Investment), 42nd Roundtable Meeting of ASEAN Chartered Professional Engineer Coordinating Committee (ACPECC) held on March 2, 2020, by Dr. SarithdejPathanasethpong, Council of  Engineers Thailand.

At the invitation of the Vietnam Mornitoring Committee to implement the mutual recognition agreement on technical advisory services in ASEAN, the President of Federation of ASEAN Consulting Engineers (FACE) for the term 2019-2021, President of Vietnam Engineering Consultant Association – Nguyen Thi Duyen attended and presented at the meeting with the topic “Discusion on Mobility for ACPE”. VECAS Vice President Pham Thi Bich and engineers from Vecas attended meeting.

The FACE President’s presentation highlighted the gap between the desired benefits of the Mutual Recognition Agreements in ASEAN and the actual benefits in registered ASEAN Chartered Professional (ACPE); limited reasons for benefits of ACP Engineers when moving abroad, not many barriers, policies, resources, languages, agreement implementation process, consulting remuneration, tax … in ASEAN Member States (AMS) did not encourage Engineers in the technical consulting industry registered to become ACPE. After many years of implementing the Agreements, the number of engineers approved by the ASEAN Chartered Professional Engineer Coordinating Committee is very small compared to the workforce working abroad in ASEAN (ACPECC source in February / 2020: 4060 ACPE registered, 16 RFPE foreign engineers registered; 262 Vietnamese engineers registered ACPE). One of the other reasons presented is that there are many other ways to register to work abroad in ASEAN under the policies of each AMS without ACPE / RFPE registration.

At the same time, FACE also asked ACPECC and ASEAN Member States to pay attention to coordinate with professional social organizations and FACE in the process of implementing the agreement.