This timely volume reviews the rapidly changing international economic environment and raises a range of issues and concerns pertaining to recent developments and the future of AFTA, ASEAN Free Trade Area. Part one is devoted to thematic analyses and perspectives dealing with trade; enlarging the ASEAN regional grouping; and relations with the World Trade Organization (WTO). Part two analyses AFTA in a wider comparative perpectives, examining relationships with the major trading patners of ASEAN, namely the United States (and more broadly NAFTA); Japan; and the European Union.

Festschrift in honor of Kernial Singh Sandhu, d. 1992, director of ISEAS.

During the past decade, ASEAN has shifted its focus from political and military security to economic co-operation and development. Although this change may ease the integration of the four mainland Southeast Asian nations -- Vietnam, Laos, Myanmar, and Cambodia into ASEAN, there remain significant challenges to forge a workable and united ten-member ASEAN. This book examines many of the economic, political, and institutional issues confronting the enlarged regional grouping. The volume is organized into three sections based on the perspectives of the region, subregion, and the newer members. It not only addresses ASEAN's enlargement but also contributes to the debate on ASEAN's shifting role in the twenty-first century.

Given the rapid emergence of regional economic arrangements in Asia, especially in Southeast Asia, it is useful to understand clearly what regionalism implies for the region, as well as to take stock as to the far-reaching and complicated effects of formal economic cooperation and integration. This book allows the reader to better understand the relevant international policies of the Southeast Asian economies, and to appreciate the potential lessons for other developing regions. It also focuses on the regionalism trend with an explicit application to ASEAN, as well as the implications of regionalism in the developed countries.The goal of this book is to survey the economics and political economy of regionalism in the ASEAN context from a variety of perspectives and using various techniques, from standard economic analysis of preferential trading arrangements to the political economy analysis of institutions. Its approach is comprehensive in that it includes ASEAN economic integration in the areas of trade, foreign direct investment, and finance. Presentation of the material is designed to be accessible to non-technical audiences without sacrificing the rigor expected by economists and other experts.

This is an important and timely volume: important because ASEAN is an increasingly significant and influential regional and global actor; and timely because, as the 2015 ASEAN Economic Community target approaches, what is needed is a sympathetic yet arms-length survey of the issues and challenges. ASEAN will miss some of the targets laid out in its AEC Blueprint, but the reader is left in no doubt that the ASEAN spirit is alive and well. The editors include a distinguished former Secretary General of ASEAN and the leading academic analyst of ASEAN economic cooperation. They and their co-editors are to be congratulated for soliciting contributions from an outstanding and diverse group of authors, and then adding their highly authoritative commentary and analysis. A must read for anybody seriously interested in ASEAN.

Verico discusses the ASEAN economic integration from dual perspectives of time span (trade, investment and finance) and framework (bilateral, sub-regional, regional and regional plus). The work is a comprehensive study of the integration in the wake of the ASEAN Economic Community (AEC)’s inauguration in late 2015. Examining various economic agreement levels from the ASEAN Free Trade Area (AFTA), Bilateral Free Trade Agreement (BFTA) and the AEC to financial integration in ASEAN, Verico attempts to envisage the future of ASEAN in completing its regional economic integration from trade to investment and finance. Verico argues that, in the absence of a customs union, ASEAN must utilize the open-regionalism frameworks of the ASEAN Plus One, ASEAN Plus Three, Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership and others in order to shift its economic integration level in this way.

Changing Patterns of Global Trade outlines the factors underlying important shifts in global trade that have occurred in recent decades. The emergence of global supply chains and their increasing role in trade patterns allowed emerging market economies to boost their inputs in high-technology exports and is associated with increased trade interconnectedness.The analysis points to one important trend taking place over the last decade: the emergence of China as a major systemically important trading hub, reflecting not only the size of trade but also the increase in number of its significant trading partners.