Speech by Gao Hucheng

Dear journalist friends ,
Ladies and gentlemen,

Good morning. As Beijing Olympic Games was just concluded with great success and the 5th China-ASEAN Expo (CAEXPO) is about to commence, I feel great honored to be here to brief you on the issues concerning the CAEXPO.

The China-ASEAN Expo (CAEXPO), co-sponsored by governments of China and ten ASEAN countries as well as the ASEAN Secretariat, is a grand international trade fair. Since 2004, 4 sessions of CAEXPO have been concluded with great success, serving as an important platform for accelerating the China-ASEAN Free Trade Area (CAFTA) construction and deepening the China-ASEAN reciprocal cooperation. In today's trend of both global and regional economic development, the CAEXPO will play an increasingly important role in facilitating multi-lateral trade and maintaining the stable development of regional economy.

I. since the birth of the CAEXPO 5 years ago, the CAFTA construction has been accelerated and the China-ASEAN economic and trade cooperation has maintained a sustained and fast growth.

1. The CAEXPO has become a propeller to the CAFTA construction.

The CAFTA is the first free trade area agreement signed between China and foreign countries. Since the conclusion of the Framework Agreement on Comprehensive Economic Cooperation between China and ASEAN in 2002, particularly since the year 2004 when the 1st CAEXPO was held, the CAFTA construction has gained year-on-year growth. In November, 2004, both sides concluded the CAFTA Agreement on Trade in Goods, which came into effect in July, 2005, reducing tariff rates upon 7000 categories of commodity. In January, 2007, the CAFTA Agreement on Trade in Service was also signed. Both sides have made commitments to opening up over 60 service sectors to each other, which are more favorable than the commitments made among WTO members. In addition, negotiations on investment have gained positive results. Upon its completion, the CAFTA will witness a total economic aggregate of USD5.2 trillion and a total trade volume of USD4.5 trillion; and with a population of 1.9 billion people, the CAFTA will become the most populous FTA in the world.

Over the past five years, the CAEXPO has always kept pace with the CAFTA construction. Over 98 percent of CAEXPO exhibits are products that are listed in the CAFTA tariff-reduction program. To match the implementation of the CAFTA Agreement on Trade in Service, the 4th and 5th CAEXPO have identified the Port/Harbor Cooperation and the Information and Communications Technology (ICT) Cooperation as their respective Theme of the Year, which have effectively promoted the China-ASEAN cooperation in service sectors like logistics and information. By joining this grand event as trade visitors and exhibitors, enterprises from both sides have enjoyed benefits and find abundant business opportunities brought by the CAFTA construction. The successful CAEXPOs has effectively transformed the CAFTA construction from paperwork consensus reached by state leaders of both sides to pragmatic moves of business circles, which has injected powerful drive for the CAFTA construction.

2. The CAEXPO now serves as an important platform for bilateral trade between China and ASEAN.

The CAEXPO mainly exhibits products that enjoy market potential and large trading volume in China-ASEAN bilateral trade, such as machineries & equipments, electronics & electrical appliances and building materials. The previous 4 CAEXPOs have attracted altogether 82,000 exhibitors and trade visitors, and concluded a total trade volume of USD4.92 billion. The number of booths used by the ASEAN countries keeps growing year by year and will increase to 1052 at the upcoming 5th CAEXPO, which will pragmatically fuel the bilateral trade by attracting a large number of Chinese enterprises for procurement. Besides, the CAEXPO Secretariat, via its own China-ASEAN business database with over 2 million entries of data, is able to provide more business opportunities and better business-matching service for enterprises of both sides. Therefore, the CAEXPO has emerged as a platform for China and ASEAN enterprises to explore each other's market and develop two-way trade.

As the CAFTA construction has sped up, trade between China and ASEAN has maintained fast growth. The bilateral trade volume was only USD105.88 billion in 2004, while in 2007, the number jumped to USD202.5 billion, gaining an average annual growth rate of 23.8 percent for 3 consecutive years. It also realized the goal which said USD200 billion set by state leaders of both side 3 years ahead of schedule. As the China-ASEAN trade volume accounts for 10 percent of China 's total import/export trade volume, ASEAN has in fact become the 4th largest trading partner of China . In the first half of this year, bilateral trade volume has reached USD 115. 789 billion, up by 25.8 percent over the same period of last year, 12.6 percent higher than the growth rate of China-US trade and 17.9 percent higher than that of China-Japan trade. As this momentum continues, ASEAN is expecting to take Japan 's place to be China 's 3rd largest trading partner in 2010, only after the EU and US.

3. The CAEXPO is now a bond to closer the investment cooperation between the two sides.

Since investment cooperation is one of the 4 themes/pavilions of the CAEXPO, each of the previous 4 CAEXPOs has arranged over 20 briefing conferences on investment cooperation, at which 10 ASEAN countries were able to promote their respective investment projects and industrial parks of all kinds. During the CAEXPOs, signing ceremonies for these investment cooperation projects have also been held. The previous 4 CAEXPOs witnessed the conclusion of international cooperation projects with a total investment of USD22.26 billion, of which 189 projects, worth USD5.8 billion, are overseas investing projects of Chinese enterprises. The volume of Chinese domestic cooperation projects concluded during the CAEXPOs has topped RMB220.3 billion. As more and more Chinese enterprises are encouraged to invest abroad, the CAEXPO will play an even more important role in facilitating bilateral investment cooperation.

By the end of 2007, there were 30,963 ASEAN-invested projects in China with a contractual investment of USD103.7 billion and actual paid-in investment of USD46.55 billion; while the Chinese enterprises have invested a total of USD3.95 billion in the 10 ASEAN countries and have concluded labor contracting projects worth USD57.17 billion, with sales revenue topping USD33.83 billion.

II. China-ASEAN strategic partnership continues to develop and the CAEXPO has shaped a sound channel for bilateral cooperation in wide range of areas at various levels.

In 2006, Commemorative Summit marking the 15th Anniversary of China-ASEAN Dialogue Relations was held concurrently with the 3rd CAEXPO and China-ASEAN Business and Investment Summit (CABIS). During the Commemorative Summit, Premier Wen Jiabao and state leaders from the 10 ASEAN countries have issued a Joint Declaration, which reviewed the development of China-ASEAN friendly relations and summarized the successful experiences. It highly commented on the solid progress made by both sides in a wide range of areas and mapped out a blueprint for future development. In July, 2008, Chinese government declared that it would appoint an ASEAN ambassador, marking a milestone for the further development of China-ASEAN relations. This August, at the opening ceremony of Beijing Olympic Games, 12 head of state/government or high-ranking officials of the ASEAN countries have shown their presence.

Just inn a short period of 5 years since its birth, the CAEXPO has become an important mechanism for China-ASEAN cooperation, and a new platform for developing strategic partnership and seeking mutual-benefits and win-win results. The previous 4 CAEXPOs have attracted 23 heads of state/government and about 600 VIPs at or above ministerial level. Various meetings among leaders have been arranged at each CAEXPO, to enhance mutual understanding and friendly relations. Through this grand event, China and ASEAN cooperation and exchanges in a wide range of areas have also been strengthened. During the previous 4 CAEXPOs, over 100 Chambers of Commerce and professional associations have participated actively; 36 cities of Charm in both China and ASEAN have showcased their city images and 145 high-level forums and conferences have been held. Via the CAEXPO, some bilateral cooperation mechanisms such as the China-ASEAN Youth Training Base, China-ASEAN Women Training Center have been established in Nanning , Guangxi. There is no doubt that the CAEXPO permanently held in Nanning is a superb platform for exchanges among China-ASEAN leaders, cities, enterprises and peoples from all walks of life, and serves as a channel for multi-leveled cooperation at a wide range of areas between the two sides.

In addition, what CAEXPO has achieved is highly credited by both China and ASEAN state leaders. At the 11th China-ASEAN Summit held in Singapore last November, Chinese Premier, Wen Jiabao emphasized that the CAEXPO and the CABIS should be long-term programs and should serve as important platforms for deepening exchanges and cooperation, seeking mutual benefits and win-win results and thus promoting common development of the two sides. At the opening ceremony of the 4th CAEXPO, His Royal Highness Al-Muhtadee Billah, Crown Prince of Brunei Darussalam delivered a speech and expressed that the CAEXPO had become a red-letter day on the ASEAN calendar.

III. The CAEXPO should be further developed into an event with its distinctive characteristics and sound economic results.

With the global economic development slowing down and global inflation rising, this year witnesses the economic turbulence in some ASEAN countries, also due to the instability in international financial market and other uncertainties and potential risks in world economy. The Asian Development Bank (ADB) estimates that this year ASEAN's economic growth rate will be reduced from 6.5 percent in 2007 to 5.7 percent. To address the challenges in regional economic development, ASEAN countries are now vigorously pushing forward various regional cooperation mechanisms and action plans, to strengthen their capacities in resolving problems by expanding economy scale and improving resource allocation. The new characteristics of the regional economy have raised higher requirements on the CAEXPO. Under such circumstances, we would like to join hands with other CAEXPO Co-sponsors to press ahead tasks as follows:

1. Further strengthening our cooperation to enhance and enrich the CAEXPO co-sponsorship mechanism for win-win results.

We will strengthen our cooperation with our ASEAN co-sponsors and the ASEAN Secretariat to better balance the interests of all parties involved, and to better meet the needs of businesses in aspects like exhibition contents, business matching services and event arrangement. We'll further enrich the mechanism of CAEXPO Country of Honor and ensure sound outcomes of its relevant programs. As far as the business matching service is concerned, priority will be given to the ASEAN enterprises, thus to access more enterprises to the abundant business opportunities of the fast growing China-ASEAN market.

2. Further improving services, to achieve better economic and trade outcomes

We will arrange the display of commodities and projects that enjoy market potential in the bilateral trade, to meet the needs of businesses of both sides. We'll further update the China-ASEAN business database and enhance routine business pre-matching services beside those provided during the event. More quality buyers from EU and US, Japan and Republic of Korea (ROK) will be invited, thus to create more business opportunities for exhibiting enterprises.

3. Better use the CAEXPO platform to deepen cooperation in China-ASEAN priority cooperation fields

We'll better use the platform of the CAEXPO, which features the sound combination of exhibitions and forums/conferences, to arrange a series of high-level forums/conferences, thus to facilitate bilateral exchanges in various areas. Representatives from competent departments in China will be invited to release official policy information on China-ASEAN cooperation and to brief on the latest development and achievement of the CAFTA construction; and a number of major Chinese foreign-aid projects and economic cooperation projects will also be concluded by then, thus to further promote the platform of the CAEXPO.

Ladies and Gentlemen,

Facing the current regional and global economic situation, strengthening cooperation to jointly create development opportunities and to address challenges is the common choice for all parties concerned. We are willing to, via the CAEXPO, enhance mutual-beneficial cooperation with the ASEAN countries, to enable enterprises of different countries to share the benefits and business opportunities brought about by CAFTA, what's more, to jointly enhance and enrich the China-ASEAN economic and trade cooperation in an all-round way, thus to contribute to the common prosperity of the China-ASEAN region.

Thank you!