While the deal was delayed because of the cancellation of the Asean summit, the bloc is still aiming for that goal -- but there is growing doubt about whether 10 such different nations can integrate in so short a time.

From convincing the private sector it can work, to establishing the institutions necessary to oversee a true European-style single market, the dream of integration needs a reality check, experts and political leaders say.

"Institutions are central to the whole process of setting up the economic community," said Charles Goddard with the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU), a think-tank.

He said the "spaghetti-like" proliferation of bilateral free-trade agreements within the bloc only complicated the "very daunting task" of establishing the mechanisms needed to make a single market work successfully.

The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) has already embarked on an ambitious programme to slash import tariffs on most products moving through the politically and ethnically disparate region of nearly 600 million people.

The stakes are high for the group's members, many of which have rebuilt their mainly plantation economies in just over a generation to become global trading players and key production bases for the world's largest firms.

Exports now account for more than 70 percent of Asean 's economic output, but that transformation means that much of the bloc has become reliant on exports at a time when China is grabbing an ever-larger share of international trade.

"China would significantly crowd out Asean exports in most western and other non-East Asian economies by 2020 if China unilaterally liberalises and Asean does not," said Ponciano Intal, a Manila-based economist.

An EIU report released this week said that Chinese exports have already overtaken those of Asean 's top seven economies combined -- Indonesia, Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore, the Philippines, Vietnam and Myanmar.