The Asean Economic Community (AEC) has the potential to become a "powerful" force but it could take another 10 to 15 years before this is achieved, said OCBC chief executive Samuel Tsien.
Mr Tsien told a forum yesterday that the AEC must become a truly integrated economic community where there is a "comprehensive sharing of resources".
There are three things to work on to bring this about, he added.
"The maturity of the different economies in AEC has to be on a more even footing with each other, (and there has to be) minimal border control in the movement of goods and services."
There should be fewer barriers for people to move freely across borders, so that "talent and labour resources can be shared across different economies", added Mr Tsien, who was speaking at the ST Global Outlook Forum at the Grand Copthorne Waterfront Hotel.
Mr Ong Keng Yong, executive deputy chairman of the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies, who is also the former Asean secretary-general, said that the region is still facing the problem of "how to reduce non-tariff barriers" like the rules and regulations relating to borders despite progress being made on scaling back tariffs and creating free trade agreements across Asean.
However, the region has made "impressive progress" on the AEC, said Mr Tsien, "given that there are more than 600 measures that were planned to be completed by year end".
Now that the process of an integrated economic community has begun, Mr Ong said it cannot be reversed.
He said that Asean countries will continue to struggle to give "concrete results" to the agenda of building an Asean community.
But the region has developed good mechanisms in the past few years, and Mr Ong hopes Asean will take advantage of its "unique proposition in managing powers outside South-east Asia".
However, there is no doubt that the integration of Asean will
move along, and the next few years are crucial for the region, which has been working on things in the past decade, noted Mr Ong.
Mr Tsien said the stimulus that will come from China's "One Belt, One Road" initiatives, which were created to boost trade and investment, will also boost the AEC's development.
China has been Asean's largest trading partner since 2009, with trade volume to reach US$500 billion (S$706 billion) by the year end and US$1 trillion by 2020.
Mr Tsien said that the initiatives could bring Asean together to collaborate on new opportunities that will come from outside the region.
"Cross-border business activities... can stimulate demand for more investments, more private sector involvement, and more financing and capital market demands," added Mr Tsien, noting that this will bode well for all sectors in the region.