( CNN ) -- Over the past year I 've revisited a host of Southeast Asian countries I first began traveling in more than a decade ago . The region 's progress has been remarkable both in terms of overall economic growth and the promising opening of formerly isolated nations like Myanmar . With China 's slowing growth and rising wages , investors and exporters are searching for new long-term opportunities and sites of production . The time of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations ( ASEAN ) has come . Last month in Laos , I met a Malay-Laotian couple with modest backgrounds who met while on fellowships in Japan . After their respective graduate degrees , they reunited in Vientiane where they advise government agencies , donors and NGOs . Their cross-border mobility is a symbol of an entire new generation of upwardly progressive Southeast Asians who view their success as intimately connected to the broader region rather than their smaller home nations alone . While much attention is paid to President Xi Jinping 's articulation of a `` China Dream , '' quietly an `` ASEAN Dream '' is also being born . Read more : ASEAN 'cornerstone ' of Japan 's Asian diplomacy . While obviously far from integrated in the ways the European Union is , ASEAN now has a momentum that Europe 's regional project lacks . Despite their historical differences and rivalries , ASEAN countries have been pushing forward rapidly with cross-border investments , commercial integration , and intra-regional trade that has kept them growing fast -- averaging more than 5 % -- even as the major export markets like Europe lose steam . With about 600 million people , ASEAN has only half of India 's population but already a larger GDP . Research firm IHS projects that ASEAN 's GDP will reach $ 4.7 trillion in 2020 , not far off where Japan is today . Strategic location . ASEAN countries have strategic geography on their side as well . The region forms the crossroads of China and India , with deep infrastructural links re-emerging gradually through Myanmar . It is also the main conduit , via the Straits of Malacca , for most of the world 's oil flows between the Near East and Far East . Now is the time for ASEAN to move from size to coherence . Over the past 50 years , Southeast Asia has experienced colonial liberation , the traumatic Vietnam War , internal rivalries between Indonesia and Malaysia , various forms of strongman rule , and diplomatic self-isolation through non-alignment . Today the region can be considered largely stable save for the simmering South China Sea dispute . This is ASEAN 's chance to assert its collective voice , with American backing , vis-Ã -vis China and ensure that no single power dominates these crucial waters . The same applies to the issue of China 's rampant upstream damming of the Mekong River , which threatens the stability of downstream flows on which ASEAN 's heavily agricultural nations depend . Read more : ASEAN chief : South China risks becoming 'Asia 's Palestine ' Continued economic integration is also a strategic imperative . ASEAN is expected to launch an Economic Community ( EAC ) by 2015 that can either boost the region 's growth potential or reveal deeper protectionist firewalls in both strong and weak economies . As much as Vietnam and Thailand stand to gain from even greater access to Myanmar , Cambodia , and Laos , a community worth its name needs a vision to help develop its poorest members . The top priority both to promote integration and assist weaker ASEAN nations must be infrastructure investment . Besides Singapore , which has already become a first world city-state , only Vietnam and Malaysia have significantly invested in nationwide infrastructure . Coupled with significant political and regulatory reforms , their second wave is under way . Other major ASEAN countries such as Indonesia , Thailand and the Philippines are finally ramping up in terms of allocating greater shares of the national budget and overall GDP to infrastructure . Crucial gateway . Far too often flooding and other mishaps take critical sectors of their economies offline . Indonesia is now focused on roads , Thailand on railways , and the Philippines on ports . If they execute on these critical projects , the current growth rates will be far more resilient in the years ahead . Furthermore , with their high savings rates , dynamic private sectors , and growing interest from international markets , much more indigenous and foreign capital can be allocated towards public-private investment pools that can finance long-term infrastructure needs . We should remember that ASEAN 's integration and development is as fundamentally a social as an economic or political issue . Around the world , urbanization is bringing never-before-imagined opportunities to more than 50 million people per year who move into cities -- but it has also exacerbated inequality , fueling unrest from Sao Paulo to Istanbul . For inclusive growth to occur , urbanization must be strategically conceived as a vehicle for employing -- and training -- tens of millions of youth in construction , hospitality , healthcare , education , and other services . Furthermore , the large rural poor populations of Myanmar , Cambodia and Indonesia need the basic health and education systems , as well as more advanced agricultural equipment that open borders can bring . For decades ASEAN has been thought of as a second-tier regional body . Now it has a chance to be the crucial gateway between powerful regions , a network of sustainable cities , and a thriving pillar of the century of Asia .
ASEAN economies have been growing at an average of more than 5 % , Parag Khanna says . With a shared population of just half India 's , ASEAN already has a larger GDP , he says . Comment: ASEAN nations ' top priority must be infrastructure investment , Khanna says .