Launched as a political bloc and security pact in the aftermath of the Viet Nam War, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) has evolved to embrace an ambitious economic agenda. Its latest project is to establish the ASEAN Economic Community (AEC) by 31 December 2015. Fulfilling these...

In November 2002, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) committed itself to the creation of an ASEAN Economic Community (AEC), in which goods, services, capital, and skilled labor would flow freely by the year 2020, or possibly even 2015. Hence, the AEC will guide the ASEAN...

The 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations, ASEAN, is arguably the most durable and successful regional grouping in the developing world. Established in 1967, it has contributed greatly to regional harmony and prosperity. ASEAN is characterized by great internal diversity, generally...

ASEAN has significant achievements to its credit. It is a durable and effective functioning entity, more so than any other regional organization in the developing world. For a region characterized by great diversity and a history of conflict, ASEAN has played a role in delivering relative peace...

Motivated by the proliferation of free trade agreements (FTAs) in Asia over the last decade, this paper studies the challenges faced by the Asian “noodle bowl” — overlapping, multiple trade rules, regulations, and standards in Asia — in the process of regional and global trade...

The growth of digital trade is dependant upon greater interconnectivity across borders. Several countries strive to achieve such interconnectivity and integration in digital trade through international trade agreements. Digital trade integration is a complex, multidimensional process that...

Theories of regional integration typically analyze the regional integration process from the perspective of a single discipline, usually economics. However, such one-dimensional analytical frameworks cannot fully capture the richness and complexity of the inherently multi-dimensional regional...

This paper reviews the progress in trade-related areas of ASEAN Economic Community to be established by 2015. It provides empirical evidence and qualitative analysis on how the process of trade integration worked and what could have been done for it to have worked better. Where appropriate it...

This paper is interested to introduce an alternative free trade agreement framework to promote the fast economic growth and the reduction of poverty in low income ASEAN members. This new scheme of free trade agreement is called “The Nano-Free Trade Territory (NFTT)”. The main objective of...

Galvanized by the devastation of the Second World War, European countries achieved a historically unprecedented and unparalleled level of regional economic integration in the postwar period. Intensive cooperation between the two biggest powers of continental Western Europe, France, and Germany,...