FTAAP, once established, would be the world's largest free trade zone and would "fundamentally solve the 'spaghetti bowl' effect, and serve as a comprehensive and effective institutional framework for regional integration," said Liu Chenyang, director of APEC study center in Tianjin-based Nankai University.
According to Liu, a feasible way to achieve the FTAAP is through "docking, integrating or expanding the large-scale FTAs currently in the making."
These include the faltering TPP which now has 11 members after the United States' withdrawal, and the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP), which groups the 10 members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and their six major trading partners -- China, Japan, South Korea, India, New Zealand and Australia.
The 21 APEC members, covering some 40 percent of the global population, account for some 60 percent of the world's economy and half of global trade.
An eventual FTAAP could "bring great opportunities for the Asia-Pacific region and create positive externalities for the rest of the world," according to the APEC strategic study.
"FTAAP as a long-range objective for market integration of the Asia-Pacific region, is bound to be welcomed by the majority of countries in the region," said Jin Jianmin, senior fellow at Fujitsu Research Institute in Tokyo.
CHINA'S CONTRIBUTION
"With the United States rapidly retreating into protectionism and isolationism, we look forward to Chinese leadership in pushing forward the free trade agenda," said Oh Ei Sun, special adviser for International Affairs of Malaysia's Asian Strategy and Leadership Institute.
Sridharan Nair, territory senior partner of PwC, sees China's drive for FTAAP as "a catalyst for many others to be part and parcel of it."
"Imagine having a pact with China in it versus not having China in it, clearly the former will be much more attractive for the other participant," he told Xinhua on the sidelines of the APEC meetings.
The China-proposed Belt and Road Initiative, which aims to build regional trade and infrastructure networks and boost connectivity, can effectively facilitate regional economic integration and the realization of FTAAP, experts say.
Jayant Menon, lead economist of the Asian Development Bank, said the Belt and Road Initiative is a "key program to increase connectivity within the region, and between the region and the rest of the world."
"Trade costs are directly related to the level of connectivity, and as these costs come down, integration is certain to rise," Menon said.
The core of the Belt and Road Initiative is in many ways in line with that of the FTAAP, according to Chen Dingding, associate dean of Institute for 21st Century Silk Road Studies at Jinan University.
The initiative can help accelerate the realization of FTAAP in economic, political and cultural aspects, while the trade deal would in turn facilitate the Belt and Road development, he added.
"We watched China's Belt and Road Initiative with interest," Alan Bollard, executive director of the APEC Secretariat, told Xinhua. "It's a different sort of development. It's not a regional trade agreement and it's generally not focused on rules and regulations...It's about investment, projects and development of infrastructures."
"We are very interested in that, the bigger initiative goes beyond APEC as well," he added.
