Written by the Editorial Department / Translated by Mao Yuye

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New Driving Force to Lift China-ASEAN Economic and Trade： Remarkable Achievements of the 13thCAEXPO

Written by the Editorial Department / Translated by Mao Yuye

The just-concluded 13thCAEXPO boasting the clear focus, plentiful content and pragmatic model has achieved remarkable results. Efforts were renewed in promoting commodity trade, investment cooperation and especially the priority cooperation areas including China-ASEAN Information Harbor, E-commerce, and international production capacity. And focus was set on the building of key industries and projects. The new driving force generated by the priority cooperation has turned CAEXPO into the forefront of regional cooperation.

Sharing the dividends brought by the economic and trade cooperation

The 13thCAEXPO welcomed a total of 65,000 exhibitors and meeting participants， and set up 5,800 booths. Both the expo scale and the number of exhibitors reached a record high. Seven ASEAN countries set up their own theme pavilions, and there were totally 65 exhibitors from 18 countries beyond the region and purchasers from 51 countries and regions, according to the statistics released by the Organizing Committee of CAEXPO.

During the event, new progress was made in economic and trade cooperation. There were 72 investment promotion activities in total. A group of cooperation agreements were reached and most popular products had a big trade volume. The popular ASEAN products include food & beverage, daily goods, handmade crafts and the Chinamade ones are mechanical equipment, electronic and electric appliances and building materials. Particularly, in terms of the place of origin, Malaysian goods enjoyed the top trade volume among the goods of ASEAN countries and Shanghai goods had the bigger trade volume than any other goods of the rest places of China; in terms of the category of major products, building materials made the largest deal. The board chairman of Guangxi Xinhu Commercial Trading Company and agent of BeerLao in China spoke highly of CAEXPO as the platform channeled BeerLao to most major cities in China. The president of Nanning Meisida Mining Machinery and Equipment Co., Ltd. said happily that their company had signed the fi rst agent in Malaysia and their products would step into Malaysia soon.

In terms of investment cooperation, the 13thCAEXPO introduced the current investment environment and policies and promoted exchanges at both political and business levels, industrial matchmaking, and the interactions between banks and other enterprises through ASEAN Industrial Park Business Promotion Conference, China-ASEAN Expo Investment and Cooperation Roundtable conference, infrastructure cooperation forum and an array of negotiations. A total of 56 cooperation projects were signed between China and 15 other countries and regions, ASEAN included, involving high-end manufacturing (equipment manufacturing, biological medicine, electronic information, new energy and new materials), modern service industry (fi nancial investment, trade logistics, headquarters economy, cultural creativity and E-commerce), and urban complex and industrial park. Domestically, a total of 110 projects were signed between seven Top-500 enterprises of China (China Resource, China Huangdian Corporation, New Hope Group, etc.) and 11 other leading enterprises. In addition, a group of enterprises directly under the central government and 19 cities and provinces like Beijing, Shanghai, Shandong, Henan, Zhejiang, Guangdong, Jiangsu, Fujian, Sichuan, Gansu and Qinghai, have proactively participated in CAEXPO in a bid to march into Guangxi market. For example, projects like Qidi ASEAN Scientific City, Transfar Road-port, and Zhongrongxin Lingqu Ancient City have settled in Guangxi.

Jointly building the Information Silk Road

The highlight of the expo lies in the Comprehensive Cooperation Agreement on Building Cooperation China-ASEAN Information Harbor signed by Guangxi Government and Alibaba Group. The agreement aims todeepen cooperation in areas of technology export, cloud computing & big data, “Internet Plus”, E-commerce, Internet finance and public credit system, contributing to Guangxi’s export of technology, service, trade and human resource to ASEAN countries.

In terms of information harbor cooperation, China-ASEAN Information Harbor Forum further advanced the building of China-ASEAN Information Harbor and issued a white paper on China-ASEAN Information Technology Development and Cooperation for 2016; a tripartite strategic framework agreement on promoting the pilot base for China-ASEAN Information Harbor Financial Service was signed by the National Development and Reform Commission of the People’s Republic of China, China Development Bank and Guangxi, and there were a series of framework agreements signed by Guangxi and info-communication and financial agencies for pressing ahead with the building of core base of China-ASEAN Information Harbor.

In this regard, Mr. Zhuang Rongwen, Deputy Director of the State Internet Information Offi ce, came up with a fourpoint proposal on promoting the building of China-ASEAN Information Harbor and deepening China-ASEAN Cyber Space Cooperation.

The Vice Minister of Industry and Information Technology, the P.R.C. Chen Zhaoxiong argued that the information harbor forum was greatly instrumental for deepening information and communication cooperation and delivering win-win results for the region.

The Cambodian Minister of Information Khieu Kanharith said that the Kingdom threw its full support to the building of China-ASEAN Information Harbor and believed that this plan is sure to push Cambodia ahead, enhance the friendship and mutual understanding between the Cambodian and Chinese peoples and lay a solid foundation for the world and regional peace.

Meanwhile, in terms of cross-border E-commerce, China-ASEAN E-commerce Summit has attracted a group of leading E-commerce enterprises from Malaysia, Thailand, Myanmar and other ASEAN members and representatives from world-renowned industrial agencies for discussing the new model of cross-border cooperation on Internet Plus.

At the China-ASEAN E-commerce Summit, a series of important E-commerce projects were launched and four projects were signed at the site: One Touch, the project between DHgate and Qinzhou Free Trade Port Area, Google AdWords and Beijing Zhijianyuntu Global Supply Chain.

Jointly promoting international production capacity cooperation

As the major part of 13thCAEXPO, a series of activities themed China-ASEAN Production Capacity Cooperation including international economic and industrial exhibition, the 2ndForum on 21st-Century Maritime Silk Road and Promoting International Production Capacity and Equipment Manufacturing Cooperation, China-Cambodia Investment Cooperation Summit Forum, and bilateral negotiations. Fruitful results were achieved in priority cooperation areas.

At the forum, China and ASEAN had reached new consensus on the effective approaches to production capacity cooperation between the two sides through a few in-depth discussions and constructive proposals, conducing to the improvement of mechanism of production capacity cooperation. Besides, a batch of projects involving energy, aviation, finance, IT and fishery was signed, with the total investment of US$ 1.6 billion. Many competitive industries and enterprises of Guangxi were introduced to the outside world.

At the China-Cambodia Investment Cooperation Summit, both sides launched in-depth discussions on the ways of investment cooperation and especially on helping Chinese enterprises gain access to Cambodian market. In addition, bilateral negotiations between China and Cambodia, between China and Vietnam, and the 1stDepartmental Meeting of the Joint Working Group of Lancang-Mekong Countries Production Capacity Cooperation were held to improve bilateral and multilateral mechanism for production capacity cooperation.

The Exhibition on International Economy and Production Capacity Cooperation, involving railway, electrical equipment, electric communication, engineering machinery, advanced technology, building material, and finance, has attracted a lot of renowned exhibitors like China Railway International Group, Aluminum Corporation of China Limited, Huawei Technologies, State Power Investment Corporation, Guangxi Investment Group Co., Ltd. and Alibaba Group.

The Assistant Secretary-General of Singapore Business Federation spoke highly of many highlights of the 13thCAEXPO for their significance in the 25 anniversary of ASEAN-China dialogue relations and future cooperation.