Prof. Hidetoshi Nishimura, the Executive Director of ERIA and Dr. Lili Yan Ing, an Economist of ERIA were invited to the 45th ASEAN Business and Investment Summit (ABIS) as panelists on 20 August, 2013 in Brunei Darussalam.

ABIS is an influential event of organized annually by the ASEAN Business Advisory Council (ABAC) that brings together Economic Ministers, Government Senior Officials, Heads of Chamber of Commerce, Heads of Business Associations, CEOs and Managers to discuss issues of strategic important to ASEAN and East Asia. It took a place in the margins of ASEAN Economic Minister Meeting.

Prof. Nishimura made a presentation on 'ASEAN in Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP)' in a Special Ministerial Session with H.E. Anand Sharma, Minister of Commerce and Industry of India and H.E. Tim Groser, Minister of Trade of New Zealand. Prof. Nishimura started the discussion with an explanation on recent trends in trade in goods, trade in services and investment of ASEAN and its FTA partners (Australia, China, Korea, India, Japan and New Zealand). He highlighted "ASEAN has already played a central role as a facilitator in RCEP negotiation process. ASEAN can indeed be a driver in the substance of regional economic integration, if the ASEAN Economic Community 2015 succeeds".

Meanwhile, Dr. Ing presented preliminary findings of a survey on 'The Use of FTAs by Private Sector' in a Session of Regional Integration. ERIA in collaboration with ABAC and ERIA's research network has been conducting a survey on 475 manufacturing firms across ASEAN countries, excluding Brunei, since April 2013. The surveys are still on-going and are expected to be accomplished by June 2014.