During the 13th ASEAN Summit in November 2007, ASEAN Leaders endorsed the ASEAN Economic Community (AEC) Blueprint, which laid the foundation of creating a "single market and production base" among the ten Southeast Asian economies. Soon after that, ASEAN faced great uncertainties in the light of the 2008 global financial crisis and continues to remain cautious in the face of the ongoing global economic weakness. Despite this, the region is forging ahead with its commitment to carry out economic liberalisation and cooperation as stipulated in the AEC Blueprint. The official AEC scorecard,...

ASEAN has a goal to create an economic community by 2015. To achieve the goal, connectivity among the member states needs to be given due importance. In 2010, ASEAN adopted the Master Plan on ASEAN Connectivity (MPAC), which looked at physical, institutional and people-to-people connectivity. It pinned down fifteen priority projects which can potentially transform the ASEAN region, providing the conditions for a single market and production base. But MPAC is an expensive initiative, and funding remains a major challenge. The private sector needs to be actively involved as a number of...