Asia is not different from other regions in the world. The increase in regionalism in Asia should be viewed from the perspective of a widespread tendency towards regional collaboration initiatives on a world scale. The general deception with the slow pace of liberalisation within the WTO-framework and the idea that regional integration agreements are “building” rather than “stumbling blocks” to global free trade (Bhagwati, 1991:77), has led to a proliferation in the number of regional FTA agreements. Many regional FTAs go even further than what is stipulated by the WTO and are therefore denoted as WTO-plus agreements (Sampson & Woolcock, 2002). It is noteworthy that this movement towards regionalism has already made way in Europe and America, but for Asia it started very recently.