"It shows that China is willing to transform the area around the South China Sea into a regional development hub that will deepen its ties with ASEAN (Association of Southeast Asian Nations) neighbours," Liu said at the forum, which was held on July 20-21 in Nanning, capital city of the Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region.

More than 160 participants from Brunei Darussalam, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Viet Nam, Japan, the Republic of Korea and China participated in this forum.

Experts and scholars participating in the forum pointed out that the M-shaped region enjoys advantages in geographical location, transportation, power resources and human resources.

"As a result, there exists great co-operation potential because of the complementary nature of social and economic development in this region," Liu said.

Major areas for future co-operation in the region include port construction, energy resources, tourism and human resources, according to Liu.

"We can start co-operation with infrastructure construction," said Liu. "That will facilitate trade and other flows."

According to the framework, the Pan-Beibu Gulf Rim Economic Co-operational Zone will be formed in the near future, which includes port cluster construction, joint marine resources exploration, port industrial development and economic and trade integration.

The Beibu Gulf area includes five ASEAN countries: Viet Nam, Indonesia, Brunei, Malaysia and Singapore, and China's Guangdong, Hainan and Guangxi.

"The initiative of the Pan-Beibu Gulf Rim Economic Co-operational Zone will by all means push forward economic and trade co-operation between China and ASEAN members, which in turn helps speed up development of the China-ASEAN free trade zone," Liu said.

Specially, it will provide new opportunities for Guangxi, which is the only region in South China sharing both land and sea borders with ASEAN members, to speed up its economic and trade development in the near future, according to Liu.

Besides the Pan-Beibu Gulf Rim Economic Co-operational Zone, the construction of Nanning-Singapore Economic Corridor is also of great importance to the M-shaped framework, according to Liu.

Liu suggested that the region could build an expressway linking Nanning and Singapore. "The plan is feasible because we only need to build about 300 kilometres of new road, although the whole length exceeds 3,000 kilometres," Liu said.

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