There was great news out of last year’s Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) Summit in Kuala Lumpur  ASEAN has accomplished 92.7% of the high-priority measures it had set for itself in advance of the start of the ASEAN Economic Community (AEC) this year. But despite this progress, it is the remaining 7.3% that will be the key to the success of the AEC. A significant part of the remaining hurdle relates to skills mobility. The potential gain from skills mobility could be very large, significantly improving the overall allocation of resources and efficiency in ASEAN’s economy as a whole. The benefits of skills mobility are potentially far greater than that of trade liberalization in the form of tariff reductions. More importantly, the potential addition of at least 14 million jobs from the successful implementation of the AEC will never be realized without skills mobility. Mobility is also essential for workers, 12 million of which have left ASEAN altogether.