The ASEAN Economic Community (AEC) can work well with China’s Belt and Road initiative, as the two complement each other in enhancing regional and world prosperity and harmony, a Malaysian expert has said.

Oh Ei Sun, senior fellow at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies of Singapore Nanyang Technological University, made the comments during a recent interview with Xinhua.

Oh said ASEAN is scheduled to launch the AEC during the Kuala Lumpur summit this month, adding that the economic pillar of ASEAN Community is the area where ASEAN thus far has been progressing fastest.

He said AEC, comprised primarily of consolidating the existing bilateral and multilateral free trade agreements among ASEAN members, is relatively easier to handle compared with the much more challenging Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) negotiations, in which some ASEAN countries such as Malaysia, Singapore, Vietnam and Brunei are participating.