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from 1.5 million to 6.5 million between 1990 and 2013. The

bulk of the migrants are low-skill workers, who are generally
subjected to strict visa requirements of the labor - receiving
countries. As to the free mobility of professionals, the study

pointed out that AFAS has benefited mainly the high -level
personnel of service-providing companies – “business visitors

for sales negotiations, natural persons on a temporary basis,
and intra-company transfers of executives, managers and other
high-skilled professionals accompanying FDI”.

The study noted that mobility of skilled labor
under the AFAS-MRA framework is slow and hardly moving.

In particular, the implementation of the MRAs (now eight [8]
in number, after the addition in November 2012 of “tourism
professionals”) is facing difficulties because of differences in

national regulations and recognitions of the professions and
the lack of inter-ASEAN agreements on how these differences

can be smoothened. Progress in inter - ASEAN recognition was
attained mainly on the MRAs for architecture and engineering.
The specific reasons for the difficult inter-ASEAN agreements

are as follows:

• Countries vary significantly in the education and

testing they require for granting professional
recognition and licenses;

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