New Asian Regionalism with Particular Focus on ASEAN+3

The purpose of this article is to present the dynamic changes in the approach of Asian economies to economic integration and especially to describe the process called “new regionalism”. Economic globalization is the main stimulus encouraging individual economies to undertake efforts towards the renewed interest in regionalism. Preferential trade agreements are the proof that economic competitiveness of individual countries is diminishing and nowadays competitiveness is based more on regions. The author of this article points out some other factors stimulating this new regionalism, as well as the main features of this phenomenon. In the article, the author presents traditional integration in the form of ASEAN for comparative purposes as well, as it is easier to point out the differences between these two processes. Special attention is paid to the efforts of creating the East Asian Economic Group and China-ASEAN Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA, in existence since 2010) and ASEAN+3 which includes ten ASEAN members, China, Republic of Korea and Japan. The article also touches upon the issue of the region’s financial stability and its main tool since 2009 – the Chiang Mai Initiative - Multilateralization as the first and very important step towards creating regional monetary fund