ASEAN RISING: ASEAN and AEC Beyond 2015 puts together ideas, thoughts and papers from more than 30 experts and specialists in the region on various areas relating to ASEAN and AEC beyond 2015. It discusses the challenges for ASEAN and AEC, how to face them and how ASEAN should move forward...

As the intra-ASEAN tariffs are virtually eliminated, it is the non-tariff measures and trade costs associated with moving goods and services across border that hinder intra-ASEAN trade. This paper focuses on reviewing the state of trade facilitation initiatives in ASEAN, especially on customs...

Investment liberalization is central for ASEAN to attract greater FDI inflows and intra-region direct investment flows. This paper focuses on measuring and examining the progress and challenges in the implementation of the investment liberalization initiatives in the AEC Blueprint 2009–2015....

The World Trade Organization (WTO) will stage its ninth Ministerial Conference (MC9) in Bali, Indonesia, on 3-6 December 2013. The meeting comes at a critical juncture for the multilateral trade body, long mired in the Doha Round stalemate. Beyond offering a critical first test at...

The structure of this report is to examines the impact of globalization on labor market outcomes. Globalization in this study is broadly defined to include trade and foreign direct investment (FDI) liberalization, trade (exports and imports), international capital flows, outsourcing and traded...

ASEAN has established mutual recognition arrangements (MRAs) on eight professional services. This paper assesses the progress of these arrangements’ paying special attention to the (i) regional and national implementation, (ii) national regulatory changes, and (iii) utilization of these...

ASEAN Economic Ministers signed the Agreement on the Movement of Natural Persons (MNP) in 2012. This is a new instrument potentially facilitating the free flow of goods, services, investment, and skilled labour, thus contributing to the establishment of an ASEAN single market and production...

The East Asian countries are seriously discussing the consolidation of ASEAN+1 FTAs to develop so-called ASEAN++ FTA or RCEP. The detailed analysis of services chapters in the existing ASEAN+1 FTAs gives insights to services trade liberalization in this new trade agreement. In order for ASEAN...

In November 2012, the leaders of the ASEAN+6 countries agreed to launch a new FTA negotiation called the "Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership" (RCEP). In this paper, we conduct stocktaking studies of ASEAN's own FTA and five existing FTAs with 6 dialogue partner countries, to identify...

The aim of this paper is to evaluate the success of progressive services liberalization under the ASEAN China FTA (ACFTA). First, we calculate the level of commitments by applying the Hoekman Index. Second, we compare the ACFTA 2nd Package with the ACFTA 1st Package and examine the additional...