Putrajaya, August 11:

Southeast Asia’s prosperity could hinge on supplying goods to China and India and luring investments from them, instead competing with economic giants in Western markets, a top international development expert said on Friday.

China will likely become the world’s biggest economy by 2025, while India might eclipse the US economy by the middle of this century, said Jeffrey Sachs, the director of the U.N. Millennium Project.

Any effort by the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations to challenge the two powerhouses won’t bear much fruit, Sachs told reporters.

“The idea of ASEAN as an exclusive trade unit to somehow give protection (against) China and India is probably not in the cards,” he said. “I wouldn’t see a defensive union make any sense.” ASEAN has expressed hopes of creating an ASEAN Economic Community by 2020, which some officials say could help the region avoid being dwarfed economically by China and India.

Several countries are calling for the plan - which would facilitate a free flow of products, services and human resources across the region - to be brought forward to 2015.

A wide economic gulf divides ASEAN’s six more developed nations - Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore and Thailand - and its four newer members - Cambodia, communist Vietnam and Laos and military-ruled Myanmar.