The proposed ASEAN Economic Community could offer new market opportunities for nations such as Japan that are currently in talks to form the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a Malaysian minister has said.
Abdul Wahid Omar, who serves in the Prime Minister's Department in charge of Economic Planning, said in an interview in Davos, Switzerland, that members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations have so far implemented 80 percent of the initiatives needed to enable such integration, and that they aim to bring the AEC into existence by the end of this year.
The AEC represents one step toward creating a broader ASEAN Community, and aims to transform ASEAN into a region with free movement of goods, services, investment, skilled labor and freer flow of capital.