The Ministry of Commerce (MOFCOM) introduced at the fifth Pan-Beibu Gulf Economic Cooperation Forum held in Nanning on August 12 that ASEAN countries have become one of the destinations of Chinese enterprises' "going abroad".

Chinese vice commerce minister Yi Xiaozhun stated that on the basis of fully considering and coordinating the economic development levels of all parties and the bearing capacity of market, China and ASEAN have effectively raised the scale and level of bilateral economic and trade cooperation and proactively promoted the economic and trade development of ASEAN countries by expanding market access and eliminating trade and investment barriers.

He introduced that from January to June, bilateral trade volume of China and ASEAN countries amounted to USD136.5b, up 55% year-on-year. Among them, import of China from ASEAN reached USD71.9b, and export to ASEAN USD64.6b, up 64% and 45% year-on-year respectively. The growth of import of China from ASEAN is apparently higher than that of export to ASEAN, with Chinese trade deficit reaching USD7.3b. Meanwhile, non-finance direct investment of China in ASEAN stood at roughly USD1.22b, up 125.7% year-on-year.

Yi said that China and ASEAN countries are both the positive promoters and participants in the sub-regional cooperation. Through the tireless efforts of all parties, the pan-Beibu Gulf economic cooperation is being a new vigorous and much-concerned platform for regional economic cooperation.