“The AEC development has been criticized for being ‘too slow’ and some observers have said that the issues that have been delayed were those of importance and could make or break the success of the integration. Some specialists also commented about the lack of leadership on this issue - the role of ASEAN chairmanship is a rotating position and a series of officials from the poorer, less developed ASEAN countries will be the chair of ASEAN for the next few years which means that leadership will be inexperienced and possibly be less interested in pushing ahead quickly with integration on all fronts.”