The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) group will become China’s biggest trading partner by 2015, the China Council for the Promotion of International Trade said.
The trade association said that trade between China and the ASEAN bloc is being spurred by a number of positive factors, including the removal of trade barriers under the 2010 ASEAN-China Free Trade Agreement, which has become the third largest free-trade area in the world after the European Union and the North American Free Trade Area.
“Thanks to zero tariffs, preferential trade policies and geographic advantages, both the increasing speed and scale of that trade will be in the forefront globally and ASEAN will become China’s No. 1 trading partner by 2015,” said Zhang Wei, vice chairman of the trade organization.
ASEAN consists of Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, and Vietnam.
In 2011, ASEAN overtook Japan as China’s third largest trading partner, with bilateral trade reaching US$362.3 billion. Trade between the two major economies is forecast to top the target of $500 billion by 2015.
Photo: Adam Jones, Ph.D.
