Seminar, events expected to boost Sino-ASEAN cooperation

The ASEAN-China (Shanxi) Trade and Investment Promotion Seminar, which kicked off in Changzhi, Shanxi province on Monday, will facilitate mutual understanding and bring more opportunities for cooperation, said officials from China and other member states of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations.

As a major event during the ASEAN-China Week 2024, political and business representatives from ASEAN member states will promote and exchange views on economic and trade cooperation, during the seminar, themed "new opportunities, new momentum, new cooperation and new development".

The combined economic output of China and ASEAN has exceeded one-fifth of the world's total, contributing more than 30 percent to the global economy. They are important engines for global economic recovery, said Shi Zhongjun, secretary-general of the ASEAN-China Center, during the seminar.

"ASEAN and China share both geographical proximity and close economic ties, being each other's largest trading partners and significant investment sources," Shi said.

In the first half, trade volume between the two sides increased by 10.5 percent over the same period last year.

In 2023, China's investment in ASEAN surged by 44.6 percent, with cumulative two-way investment exceeding $380 billion.

"With the in-depth advancement of negotiation on the ASEAN-China FTA 3.0 and the continuous release of benefits from the RCEP (Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership), preferential policies such as tariff reductions and rules of origin accumulation have brought a positive impact to ASEAN-China economic and trade exchanges and industrial chain," Shi said.

"These measures have strongly supported the improvement of trade facilitation, expansion of cross-border logistics channels and acceleration of deep integration of industrial and supply chains in our region, propelling the regional economy into a new stage of high-quality development."

Enterprises also called attention to growing ASEAN ties.

The meeting will help in-depth cooperation between Shanxi and ASEAN countries in the fields of trade and investment and create more income, they said.

"Since the beginning of this year, our company has successively signed export orders for multiple vehicle models, including fuel and electric vehicles, with Myanmar, Singapore and Malaysia," said Ma Guoli, chairman of Shanxi Victory Investment Group.

"Currently, preparations are underway for a completely knocked down vehicle assembly project in Vietnam with a starting annual capacity of 1,000 units."

Ma said: "Our exported products cover a full range including left-hand drive, right-hand drive, fuel and electric vehicles … We are also planning to enter key markets such as Thailand and Indonesia, with estimated export orders of 1,000 units and export volume of 50 million yuan."

The ASEAN-China Import and Export Service Platform was launched during the event on Monday.

"The platform, leveraging a large model of artificial intelligence, can achieve accurate translation between official languages of 11 countries," Yang Yong, director of the Center for Promotion of Industrial Internet of Silk-Road, said at the seminar.

"The deeply trained AI assistant can quickly answer various questions, constantly learn and optimize according to the users' search queries and other actions, and can realize the automatic matching of target enterprises, and the tips for potential risks, which is equivalent to real-time online processing."

The platform, which is already in operation, has received thousands of cooperation requests and is expected to generate an annual market demand of more than $10 billion in the future, Yang said.