ASEAN: Regional Integration and Reforms

Abstract

Over recent decades, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) has advanced a policy of regional integration, starting with the ASEAN Free Trade Area, followed by the ASEAN+1 free trade agreements with its six main trading partners, and now with ASEAN+6. For ASEAN to further advance regional integration in the East Asian context, it should continue to focus on trade in goods, investment, and services, to smooth out the process of trade creation and investment realisation. East Asian integration is designed not to be just an 'extensive regional trade agreement', but more a 'responsive vehicle' that consists of trade and investment commitments combined with facilitation, to improve the effectiveness of the implementation of trade and investment agreements and the liberalisation agenda for all members. To keep regional integration viable, it should adopt an open regionalism policy

ERIA-DP-2015-69