China and Southeast Asian countries can use this year's APEC meeting to promote an upgrade of the China-ASEAN Free Trade Agreement, which would further strengthen connectivity and reduce costs, officials and a research report said.

The CAFTA can follow the example of the European Union to enhance trust, coordinate policymaking, and accelerate the free flow of personnel, goods, capital and information to become the engine for regional economic growth, according to a report issued in mid-February by the China Institute for Reform and Development, a Chinese think tank based in Haikou, Hainan province.

It may take three years to make a breakthrough, and around five years to form a new pattern of the 10+1 economic integration, as the current FTA has laid a good foundation for the upgrade, the report said.