The 10-member ASEAN bloc is still in its early stages, and bears some resemblance to the United States - in 1776 - according to David Carden, partner in charge of Asia at legal firm Jones Day and former US ambassador to ASEAN.

Like post-independence America, ASEAN is a place with border disputes, no common currency, and weaknesses in education, infrastructure and environmental protection.

Yet with strong leadership and focus on improvements in the right areas, the bloc has a huge amount of potential to grow in the years to come.

"If ASEAN is going to find the future, it is going to find it together," said Mr Carden. "The challenges are too great, productivity is too low, the demand for infrastructure is too high. So much needs to be done that there's no way it can be accomplished unless the people are brought together."

Mr Carden was one of six panellists speaking on Inclusive Connectivity at the ASEAN Business and Investment Summit 2014, which ran parallel to the ASEAN Summit from November 11 to 13 in Nay Pyi Taw.

Myanmar has been chair of the ASEAN bloc this year, which has launched an ambitious series of proposals to grow regional business links. ASEAN is set to enact an Economic Community at the end of 2015, aiming to ease restrictions in trade of goods, flows of services and capital throughout the region.

Yet it is increasingly clear that ASEAN member countries will struggle to meet all of their commitments on easing a host of restrictions by the deadline of the last minute of 2015. Much of the reluctance to drop barriers stems from a desire to protect local businesses from foreign competition, a force powerful enough to lead some to question whether an integrated Economic Community will indeed take form at all.

Simon Tay, chair of the Singapore Institute of International Affairs, said it will take at least five more years before the region starts operating as an integrated market.

"There is no big bang [coming in 2015], but it's opening the door, and after a while people will start going through," he said.

The ASEAN region is quite diverse. Southeast Asia may be united by multiple threads of history, culture and common geopolitical concerns, but differences abound, according to McKinsey Global Institute's November 2014 report Southeast Asia at the crossroads: Three paths to prosperity.

The report highlighted the significant differences in the region's political systems, culture, language and religion.

"Indonesia is almost 90pc Muslim, while the Philippines is more than 80pc Roman Catholic and Thailand is more than 95pc Buddhist," it said.

There are hundreds of languages spoken across the region. While English is ASEAN's official working language, countries such as Singapore and Philippines have proportionately far more fluent speakers than others such as Thailand.

Despite the differences, the collective opportunities for the bloc are evident.

Already ASEAN has a larger economy than India, Brazil or Russia, and boasts real GDP growth of 5.1pc between 2000 and 2013 - behind only India and China among major economies, the report said.

Southeast Asian countries have generally enjoyed significant growth, and if viewed as a single entity would represent the seventh-largest economy in the world - larger than India, Brazil or Russia.

The 10 nations boasted average real GDP growth of 5.1pc between 2000 and 2013 - behind only India and China among major economies, the report said.

The region also has a large, young population of 600 million people, and generally low government debt, it added.

However, restrictions still abound between neighbours in areas like trade, investment and labour flows. Experts say these restrictions need to be tackled if the goal of an integrated Economic Community is to be achieved.

While tariffs on trade have generally been lowered across the bloc, for instance, non-tariff barriers remain a serious issue.

"There is still a high degree of protectionism in the countries within ASEAN, and this is not helping," said Richard Owens, DHL executive vice president and regional head of customer relations and innovation. "This is not helping trade."

Among the more bizarre examples of protectionism are the restrictions against foreign trucks entering Myanmar - requiring shipments to be changed to a local driver and truck when entering int the country.

Each member country has its own concerns it seeks to protect. For instance Thailand and Indonesia have up to half their populations working on farms, yet the sector contributes a relateively small portion of the countries' total GDP, said Mr Carden.

"One of the greatest challenges that presents itself to ASEAN is rising nationalism and protectionism," he said.

Often these measures are put in place to protect vested interests from the worst impacts of globalisation - and it will require strong leadership to overcome such concerns.

The concept of a collective ASEAN having a joint identity is also relatively weak, making it difficult to galvanise countries behind the concept.

"ASEAN is like a mini-Disneyland with all the political systems in the world put into one [body]," said Kavi Chongkittacorn, assistant group editor for Nation Media in Thailand.

While he said he advocated for strengthened symbols to pull the region closer together, other experts disagree.

"I'm not sure anyone here can sing the ASEAN anthem," said Mr Tay.

"The symbols will come later. They will come naturally, rather than trying to rush them."

A more pressing concern than flags or songs is the significant disagreement on what role the ASEAN Secretariat - its permanent administration - should take.

Mr Carden said often the bureaucracy of the European Union is brought up as something ASEAN must avoid - but the organisation's Jakarta headquarters are a long way off from becoming Brussels.

"The EU headquarters has 33,000 people; the ASEAN secretariat has 300. We don't have to worry about this," he said.

While Mr Carden said he would like to see more spent on the secretariat, others say it shouldn't be handed a blank cheque.

Mr Tay said he would like to see a better monitoring system for government action.

"The governments have promised to have an AEC, but the tracking of it, the non-tariff barriers, all these complaints need to go somewhere. They can't just go to each government," he said.

Despite the disagreements, experts say an integrated ASEAN economic community will still arrive - eventually.

By Jeremy Mullins

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