The Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) came into being in November 2011, with the objective of attaining a comprehensive and mutually beneficial economic partnership agreement that is likely to have deeper engagement and is expected to improve over the existing ASEAN FTAs with Dialogue Partners. The Agreement takes into account the East Asia Free Trade Agreement, based on the ASEAN+3 formula and favoured by China and the Comprehensive Economic Partnership in East Asia, based on the East Asia Summit and favoured by Japan. RCEP is expected to entrench ASEAN Centrality that assumes that ASEAN, instead of the bigger economies like those of China, Japan, the United States or India, should be the hub of developing a wider Asia-Pacific regional architecture.

However, to be an effective trade agreement, RCEP needs to be a business-friendly initiative, thereby aiming to maximize benefits and lower costs of businesses in the region. It should be WTO-consistent, comprehensive in coverage with WTO plus issues and should be open to new members, depending on the emerging production networks. It should focus on domestic structural reforms, which is a key factor for implementing the initiative later. RCEP, as a broader Asian trade agreement, involving China and India, is expected to address the issue of Non-tariff barriers, multiple Rules-of-Origin and may unleash the potential of trade in services. But much depends on how ASEAN drives its own integration effort of forming an ASEAN Economic Community (AEC) by 2015 and the years later.