The agreement came on the first day of the two-day summit.

The terms were laid out in a charter called the Bali Concord II, which was modeled on the European Economic Community (EEC), of the 1960s and 70s. The EEC was the forerunner of the European Union.

The Associated Press reported that the Bali Concord II aims to standardize tariffs and regulations between the member countries by 2004, unify technological standards, tear down non-tariff barriers by 2005, and to establish a free trade area. The long-term goal is to enable the companies of member countries to conduct economies of scale and to allow manufacturers to remain competitive in terms of cost.

The Bali Concord II is to go into full effect by 2010. Its other goals include: gradually removing capital control; strengthening intellectual property rights; completing a legal system to settle trade disputes; allowing citizens of member nations to travel within the region without a visa by 2005 and issuing a single ASEAN visa to tourists from non-member states.

The single ASEAN market, which is to be established by 2020, aims to unify all trade within the area, which has a population of 500 million and a market worth US$720 billion a year. ASEAN, apart from the creation of a single market, is trying to sign free trade agreements (FTAs) with China by 2010, India by 2011, and Japan by 2012. ASEAN's secretary-general, Ong Keng Yong, told Reuters that an FTA covering 20 billion people and a total GDP of US$3 trillion would be established by 2010.

Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Chinnawat said that day that he hoped that the AEC would be built earlier than expected, because 2020 might be too late for the region to compete. Goh Chok Tong, the prime minister of Singapore, said that in the age when regional FTAs and bilateral FTAs are becoming more common, a single market was the only way to maintain ASEAN's competitiveness. (Lee Chul-min, chulmin@chosun.com )