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Upon its establishment in late 2015, the ASEAN Economic Community (AEC) opens a market of 600 million people with a total GDP of around US$ 2,000 billion. The success of the AEC depends mainly on the capacity of ASEAN to build and strengthen its intra-regional connectivity, which focuses on three dimensions: (i) physical connectivity such as infrastructure for transport, communication, and energy; (ii) institutional connectivity such as trade, investment, border management, and regulatory frameworks to foster economic growth and prosperity; (iii) people to people connectivity such as education, human resources management, ASEAN culture and tourism, mobility and welfare in Southeast Asia.

Cities and provinces play a critical role in constructing an economic community. As local and national actors, they have a unique ability to address regional opportunities and challenges. In Vietnam's perspective, AEC and ASEAN Connectivity come with both opportunities and challenges. The question is how Vietnamese local and provincial governments could take advantages of the pros and deal with the cons of AEC. The workshop, co-organized by KAS and USSH’s Saigon Centre for International Studies (SCIS), will address the following questions:

- What roles can local and provincial governments in Vietnam play in the regional integration process?

- What sort of creative policy could be conducted by local governments to boost their economic cooperation to reduce the poverty gap between the neighboring countries through regional cooperation?