Annual event helps transform proposals into reality

The 12th China-ASEAN Expo will be held from Sept 18 to Sept 21 in Nanning, the capital of the Guangxi Zhuang autonomous region.

The expo this year, with the theme of "Building the 21st Century Maritime Silk Road", consists of 25 forums and meetings. They include an international industrial capacity cooperation forum, which will be held for the first time and is expected to promote bilateral cooperation in the equipment manufacturing industry, technology transfer, finance and service sectors.

President Xi Jinping proposed building a China-ASEAN community sharing the same destiny during his State visit to Indonesia in October 2013.

The annual China-ASEAN Expo, which has been held in the permanent host city Nanning for 11 consecutive years, provides a platform for the community to transform proposals into reality in the fields of politics, economy, industry, culture and agriculture.

In the past 11 years, 57 Chinese and ASEAN state leaders as well as more than 2,300 ministers have attended the event.

In 2003, bilateral trade between China and ASEAN was $78.2 billion. The trade figure rocketed to $480.3 billion last year, and the accumulated mutual investment was more than $130 billion by last year.

It is estimated that by 2020, bilateral trade will hit $1 trillion and mutual investment will accumulate to more than $150 billion.

According to the Chinese Ministry of Commerce, trade with ASEAN members accounts for about 12 percent of China' total foreign trade. China is now the largest trade partner of ASEAN and ASEAN is the third-largest trade partner of China.

All of the 10 ASEAN member states are intentional founders of the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank that China proposed to found.

Gao Yan, vice-minister of commerce, said, "China is willing to make better use of the expo and strengthen cooperation with ASEAN to promote inter-connectivity in policy making, transport infrastructure, trade, finance and people.

"The big cooperation projects in power, bridges, agriculture and manufacturing industries have not only boosted local economic growth, but also created jobs and improved the livelihoods of local people," said Gao.

The expo helps expand the Chinese market for agricultural products from Southeast Asia and the ASEAN market for engineering machinery, automobiles, food processing and packaging equipment, power equipment, new energy, electronics and construction materials from China.

Increasing influence

Thanks to its increasing influence, the expo also attracts businesspeople from other countries in the Asia-Pacific region and Europe.

The event focuses on deepening mutual trust and understanding of the people involved. There are a series of cultural, education, tourism and art activities during the expo.

International relations between China and ASEAN members go deeper than inter-city ties. The 10 ASEAN member states have become main destinations for Chinese tourists and Southeast Asia is also a main source of tourists for China.

This year's expo is made up of a range of forums, dialogues, meetings, negotiations and exhibitions in almost all cooperation fields between the two sides.

The agricultural expo will be held in the Guangxi Exhibition Hall from Sept 18 to Sept 21. More than 400 enterprises involved in the food industrial chain have booked nearly 800 booths, among which about 100 booths are foreign enterprises. Fruit, coffee, tea, seafood and rice are expected to be the main exhibits.

During the expo, there is also a ASEAN, China, South Korea and Japan round-table conference on food security. The meeting, themed "Lowering Waste in Food Production and Optimizing the Food Value Chain", will focus on promoting practical cooperation in the agricultural field. Senior officials from the Asian Development Bank, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations and the World Food Program will attend the meeting.

Other important meetings and forums include a financial cooperation forum, cross-border investment and trade fairs, a Pan-Beibu Gulf equity investment forum, a technology transfer and innovation forum, the Nanning-Singapore economic corridor cooperation round-table meeting, a vocational education forum, an e-commerce development forum, a new energy forum and a cultural forum.

Contact the writers through liyang@chinadaily.com.cn or huoyan@chinadaily.com.cn

(China Daily 09/18/2015 page17)