The ten countries of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) are ready to form ASEAN Economic Community (AEC) in 2015 with freer trade and investment, and exchange of skilled labour. While the prospect for the success in this higher level of economic integration is good, the new AEC is faced with disparaging levels of transparency among themselves. Transparency or the absence of corruption is an important condition for sustainable development which many ASEAN countries are lacking as shown by various indicators such as the Corruption Perception Index, the Control of Corruption, and the Global Corruption Barometer.

At present all ASEAN members are doing their best to cope with their transparency and corruption problems, but greater efforts may be called for among ASEAN leaders to put transparency and anti-corruption activities in their inter-regional ministerial agenda so that the promotion of greater transparency and the fight against corruption could help ASEAN attain smoother and more sustainable levels of political, economic, and socio-cultural integration.