This paper reviews the progress in trade-related areas of ASEAN Economic Community to be
established by 2015. It provides empirical evidence and qualitative analysis on how the process
of trade integration worked and what could have been done for it to have worked better. Where
appropriate it elaborates on forces or institutions driving the process of integration. The paper
uses descriptive statistics and some off-the-shelf indicators to track progress in trade integration
which is the main pillar of building ASEAN Economic Community. Second part of the paper
examines the progress in building effective integration with the other trading partners. Three
different but inter-related issues are analyzed: 1) ASEAN in world economy in terms of relative
size, discrimination of other partners in trade, and treatment that ASEAN obtains in importing
markets of developed countries compared to average of all developing countries; 2) the WTO
membership and negotiation positioning of individual ASEAN members, and 3) the role of
bilateral and plurilateral preferential trade agreements of ASEAN member countries and of the
ASEAN as a bloc.