The ASEAN Economic Community Blueprint 2025 (or the AEC Blueprint 2025), is a strategic guiding document for ASEAN economic cooperation over the 2015–2025 period. The Blueprint encompasses more than 3,000 specific actions across 32 sectoral areas of the ASEAN Economic Community, including trade in goods and services, investment, finance, energy, agriculture and forestry, mining, transport, information technology, e-commerce, competition, intellectual property, tourism, health, and other related fields.

The AEC Blueprint 2025 sets out five broad strategic directions, with the objective of transforming the AEC by 2025 into a highly integrated and cohesive economy; a competitive, innovative and dynamic ASEAN; an ASEAN with enhanced connectivity and sectoral cooperation; a resilient, inclusive and people-oriented ASEAN with a people-centred approach; and a globally integrated ASEAN with an enhanced international role and profile.

By 2025, ASEAN Member States had begun reviewing and assessing the overall impact of the implementation of the AEC Blueprint 2025. According to the End-Term Review Report of the ASEAN Secretariat, the implementation of the Blueprint has recorded a number of positive outcomes.

First, implementation progress has been strong across all five strategic directions throughout the 2015–2025 period. As of September 2025, approximately 97 percent of the actions set out under the AEC Blueprint 2025 had been completed or were under implementation, reflecting the strong commitment of ASEAN Member States to regional economic integration and development.

Second, the AEC has generated significant economic impacts. Since 2015, ASEAN’s total GDP has grown at an average rate of 3.9 percent per year, increasing from USD 2.5 trillion to USD 3.8 trillion in 2023. GDP per capita in the region also rose from USD 3,997 in 2015 to USD 5,576 in 2023. Notably, around 5 percent of ASEAN’s total GDP growth during this period is attributed to ASEAN-wide economic initiatives.

Third, trade in goods has continued to reinforce ASEAN’s role as a key pillar of the global economy. Total merchandise trade expanded from USD 2.2 trillion in 2015 to USD 3.8 trillion in 2024. Intra-ASEAN trade reached USD 822 billion in 2024, while trade with External Partners exceeded USD 3 trillion, compared with USD 1.7 trillion in 2015. On average, ASEAN’s merchandise trade grew by around 6 percent per year, driven largely by increased trade with External Partners. This underscores ASEAN’s increasingly prominent role in global trade and value chains. Several studies estimate that ASEAN’s joint initiatives have contributed approximately 11 percent of the region’s total trade value.

Fourth, in the services sector, ASEAN has continued to strengthen its position as a driver of innovation and economic recovery. The strong performance of the services sector played a critical role in supporting the region’s recovery from the prolonged impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic. In 2023, ASEAN’s trade in services reached USD 1.1 trillion, representing a 6.8 percent year-on-year increase and a substantial rise from USD 642.2 billion in 2015.

Fifth, investment has remained a bright spot for the region. Foreign direct investment inflows into ASEAN grew by an average of around 10 percent per year. In 2023, total FDI inflows reached a record USD 229.8 billion, up 9.0 percent from the previous year and double the USD 115.4 billion recorded in 2015. This performance positioned ASEAN as the largest FDI destination among developing economies and the second largest globally, after the United States, despite the overall decline in global FDI flows. Approximately 8 percent of total FDI inflows are estimated to be attributable to AEC-related efforts. The largest recipient sectors included finance and manufacturing, followed by wholesale and retail trade, real estate, and professional activities.

These figures demonstrate that the ASEAN Economic Community has achieved significant milestones over the past one to two decades, making a positive contribution to the economic growth of each Member State while enhancing ASEAN’s collective standing and voice in regional and international fora. ASEAN Member States, together with their partners, continue to proactively tap into new cooperation potential and opportunities, contributing to deeper, more substantive and effective regional relations.

For Viet Nam, participation in the collective process of building the ASEAN Economic Community has delivered tangible national benefits. ASEAN remains one of Viet Nam’s most important trading partners, with the structure of exports to the region increasingly shifting towards higher quality and greater value added. Viet Nam has also emerged as an attractive investment destination for investors from ASEAN as well as foreign investors based in the region. Alongside its deepening engagement in ASEAN, Viet Nam’s economic relations with partners have continued to expand, providing a solid foundation for the country’s economic and political integration at the multilateral, regional and bilateral levels.