MANILA (AFP) -- The blueprint for an integrated Southeast Asian economic community has been completed and must be implemented swiftly if the 2015 deadline is to be met, ASEAN economic officials were told Friday.

A declaration by the ministers of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), said they had ""endorsed the final text of the ASEAN economic community blueprint"" and is ready for signing by ASEAN leaders when they meet in Singapore in November.
""We settled the text and we have the strategic scheduling,"" for the community to come into being, said Ong Keng Yong, secretary-general of ASEAN.
Ong said ASEAN economic ministers attending a three-day meeting in Manila, would bring the text of the blueprint back home to their leaders in preparation for the signing.
He said it was not just economic ministers but even ministers from other sectors like transport, tourism, and finance, who had ""come on board"" for the blueprint.
Ong said the document ""consists mainly of timelines, what months and what years,"" certain integration measures would be implemented.
He conceded that the draft accord would still have to go through each countries’ ""domestic political system"" but he expressed optimism it would not run into any opposition.
The blueprint also includes a monitoring mechanism to ensure countries comply with it.
The Philippine Trade Secretary Peter Favila, chairman of the meeting, said implementation of the blueprint had to be done quickly to meet the 2015 deadline.
""The time to draft the ASEAN economic community blueprint is done. The time to implement the ASEAN economic community blueprint is now,"" said Favila.
He said the roadmap was both comprehensive and flexible enough to ""allow us to modify and adjust to the vagaries of the global economy and political landscape"".
ASEAN, which includes Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, and Vietnam, has set 2015 as the date for the establishment of the ASEAN Economic Community (AEC), an integrated grouping that will allow the region to compete with Asian giants China and India.
Favila said the blueprint already contained a number of items that were ""doable"" in 2008 although he did not elaborate.
There would be ""unintended pockets of bureaucratic red tape"" that could slow the implementation of the blueprint, but Favila was confident they could be overcome.
He said the blueprint was ""not a magic wand"" that would automatically transform ASEAN when 2015 comes but that it would enable the region to ""quietly, but firmly enter an area of greater and more equitable prosperity.""
Malaysian Trade Minister Rafidah Aziz, the last chair of the ASEAN economic ministers' gathering, said the ASEAN Economic Community being envisioned should not be compared to the European Economic Community.
The ASEAN community would not involve the member countries' giving up sovereign power or adopting a common currency, she said.
""We cannot use anybody's template to evolve the ASEAN Economic Community. We are a different entity all together,"" she said