At the Fourth ASEAN Summit in 1992, member
countries agreed to create the ASEAN Free Trade
Area (AFTA), a step toward regional economic
integration, in which tariff and non-tariff barriers to
trade among the members would be reduced and
eventually abolished. However, ASEAN regional free
trade alone was (and is) seen as inadequate for the
regional grouping to be able to tap effectively into
unprecedented opportunities as well as cope with