Partnership is fundamental to Australia's relationships with our neighbours. This is no more clearly reflected than in Australia's long-standing development cooperation with ASEAN. For over thirty years, Australia has worked closely with ASEAN to reduce poverty and promote sustainable economic growth in the region. Our shared experience has confirmed not only the centrality of economic growth to poverty reduction, but the importance of close cooperation in driving and sustaining the region's economic prosperity.

ASEAN has become the primary regional organization in Southeast Asia driving closer economic integration. In leading a dynamic and rapidly growing region, it has made significant advances towards closer economic integration. Through the ASEAN–Australia Development Cooperation Program (AADCP) and its predecessors, Australia has been privileged to assist ASEAN in this important goal. In ASEAN's fortieth anniversary year, we remain committed to supporting ASEAN's economic integration and applaud its aspiration to create an ASEAN Economic Community by 2015.

This will be no simple task. It will demand innovative and robust economic policy-making, with high-quality research as an essential ingredient. Under the AADCP's Regional Economic Policy Support Facility (REPSF), the best minds in ASEAN and Australian research institutions have come together to address difficult and sometimes sensitive issues on ASEAN's economic development and integration agenda. Together, they have produced fifty research studies of lasting relevance to the challenges ahead. This book, Brick by Brick: The Building of an ASEAN Economic Community, is a fitting tribute to that collaboration.

I would like to thank all the ASEAN and Australian experts who have contributed to the REPSF over the last five years. I appreciate the pivotal role of the ASEAN Secretariat in making this research facility a great success.

I sincerely hope that this book inspires further understanding and informed debate among researchers and policy-makers interested in the region's economic progress. We need to ensure that ASEAN and Australia are well aware of both the opportunities and the risks in a challenging period ahead. In this way, we can continue jointly to shape a sustainable and equitable future for the region.