Ong Tee Keat, chairman of the Centre for New Inclusive Asia and former Malaysian minister of transportation, said it is no easy task to integrate the 15 RCEP economies, which stretch across the Asia-Pacific region and are of diverse sizes and cultures as well as quality and levels of development, creating a huge single market of 2.2 billion people.

Wu's views were echoed by Ong Tee Keat, president of the Center for New Inclusive Asia in Malaysia, who took a rosy view of the development prospects of the cooperation between Hainan and Southeast Asian countries under the RCEP framework.

Ong Tee Keat, president of the Center for New Inclusive Asia in Malaysia, and also Malaysia's former minister of transport, said the regional free trade deal can serve as a building block for multilateralism in the future.

In his opening remarks, Ong Tee Keat, founding chairman of the Center for New Inclusive Asia, a think tank based in Kuala Lumpur, said the BRI offered hope for the continuity of multilateralism and free trade which had been under assault in recent years.

"As the world is seeking an economic recovery, cooperation and interaction between China and ASEAN is now even more important," said Ong Tee Keat, founding chairman of the Center for New Inclusive Asia, a think tank based in Kuala Lumpur.

At Sany Group's booth, a robot that can write calligraphy followed the operator's gestures to a tee.

The Roundtable was co-chaired by MAS' Deputy Managing Director Ong Chong Tee and CSRC's Vice-Chairman Fang Xinghai.