ASEAN economic cooperation and integration have come a long way since the organisation's early days, when cooperation was more political and diplomatic than economic in nature. Beginning with the ASEAN Free Trade Area (AFTA) in 1992, ASEAN economic integration has become increasingly prominent, and in the twenty-first century it represents an integral part of the regional economic landscape.

The ASEAN Economic Community (AEC) initiative, conceived in 2003 and officially launched in 2009, constitutes by far the most ambitious attempt by ASEAN member states to create a ‘single market and production base’ and envisions arguably the deepest economic integration programme in the developing world. Its goal is to allow free flow of goods, services, foreign direct investment (FDI) and skilled labour and freer flow of capital within the region, to be accomplished by 2015. The AEC is being implemented in the context of a rapidly changing global and regional architecture, with multilateral trade negotiations on hold and ‘mega-regional’ trade pacts in negotiation, including the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) and the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP), the latter being a manifestation of ‘ASEAN Centrality’. The stakes associated with the successful construction of the AEC are clearly very high for ASEAN and its member states.

The goal of this book is to give a contextual review of ASEAN economic integration in general and the AEC in particular, analyse its economic implications, assess its implementation to date and consider future challenges. Below we summarise some of the major findings.