The Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) is an ambitious initiative to enhance economic integration and cooperation amongst the ten ASEAN member states and the group's Free Trade Agreement (FTA) partners of Australia, China, India, Japan, South Korea and New Zealand. If successfully concluded, RCEP as a grouping has the potential to generate a GDP of US$26.2 trillion (representing 32 per cent of global GDP) by 2015. However, RCEP negotiations are not without challenges. These include managing different relational dynamics among its sixteen members; historical conflicts and unsettled territorial disputes between China, Japan and Korea; significant development gaps among RCEP members that may prevent countries from pursuing aggressive trade liberalization policies; lack of commonality across ASEAN+1 FTAs and varying domestic policies; the lack of domestic support; and concurrent regional integration agendas which could put pressure on a country's scarce resources of personnel and budget. Despite the challenges, the ongoing RCEP negotiations showcase the member countries’ interest to deepen economic integration. With RCEP around, ASEAN will benefit from pursuing its “open regionalism” policy, addressing the “noodle bowl” effect of ASEAN+1 FTAs, and harnessing its role in developing a wider Asia-Pacific regional architecture.