ASEAN Common Time

ASEAN Common Time is an idea proposed by the Association of Southeast Asian Nations to adopt a standard time of UTC+08:00 for all member countries. Some regional businesses have already began adopting the phrase "ASEAN Common Time," and often use the abbreviation ACT in their press releases, communications, and legal documents.

There are also ASEAN citizens who have started using "ACT" on their websites and blogs. Authorities are looking to bring the unified time zone into use by 2015, when they expect the ASEAN Free Trade Area to be fully implemented, with the potential time realignment promoted as a way to better expedite commerce.

But some commentators suggest using UTC+07:00 instead, as UTC+08 would create problems in the Kachin State of Myanmar during summer months, with a late sunrise taking place at 07:20 and a late sunset at 20:45. Other experts advocate calling UTC+08:00 ASEAN Central Time, putting Myanmar at UTC+07:00, and leaving 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, Macao, Taiwan, and the west coast of Australia. The eastern islands of Indonesia would remain at UTC+09:00—in sync with North Korea, South Korea, Japan, Palau, and East Timor.

As of 2012, the four different time zones used by ASEAN countries were UTC+06:30 (Myanmar); UTC+07:00 (Cambodia, Laos, Thailand, Vietnam, and western Indonesia); UTC+08:00 (Singapore, Malaysia, Brunei, Philippines, and central Indonesia); and UTC+09:00 (eastern Indonesia).