In November 2008, the Regional Economic Studies Programme of the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies (ISEAS) and the Singapore office of the International Development Research Centre (IDRC) of Canada organised a forum on "Regional Economic Integration - ASEAN and Canadian Perspectives." The forum concluded that fundamentally the ASEAN Free Trade Area (AFTA) and the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) were two different kinds of agreements. First, while NAFTA focused entirely on trade and investments, the scope of AFTA was much broader, going beyond issues of trade and investments...

In June 2009, the ASEAN Studies Centre of the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies and the Konrad Adenauer Stiftung organized ISEAS' annual roundtable, this time on the subject of "The Global Economic Crisis: Implications for ASEAN." The roundtable concluded that the crisis had a significant impact on the region, and ASEAN needed to have a better co-ordinated approach if it was to weather the storm. The region had taken into account the fact that the developed countries like the US and the EU would take a longer time to come out of the crisis. Hence, while export-led growth policies had...