More cooperation is needed between China and ASEAN countries for logistics development, so as to keep apace with their booming bilateral trade, said experts Thursday.

 

"Underdevelopment of infrastructure has made logistics a bottleneck to China-ASEAN economic development," said Chen Gongyu, vice chairman of the China Society of Logistics.

 

At the China-ASEAN summit on Monday, a joint statement was inked by leaders from China and the ten ASEAN countries to reaffirm their determination to build a giant Free Trade Area (FTA) by 2010. While the FTA that will incorporate 1.8 billion, or one third of the world's population, is taking shape, Chen believes that more work needs to be done to perfect the logistics network in the region.

 

He suggested that three more arterial railways would be helpful: an east line by the Beibu Gulf winding from Nanning in south China 's Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region via Dongxing of the region, Vietnam's capital Hanoi and Cambodia's capital Phnom Penh to Bangkok of Thailand ; a central line, which is also expected to be a tourism line, linking Nanning with Hanoi, Vientiane of Laos, Kuala Lumpur of Malaysia and Singapore; a west line running from southwest China's Sichuan province by way of Cao Bang of Vietnam and ending in Hanoi.

 

In addition, he noted that waterway, with lower cost, could play a more important role in China-ASEAN economic cooperation. "Consignment of over 30 percent of freight in Laos and Vietnam was realized via waterway," he said.

 

Meanwhile, although China's logistics market is expanding at an average rate of 20 percent year-on-year, its cost is still high compared with developed countries, said Ding Junfa, vice chairman of China Federation of Logistics and Purchasing.

 

Total logistics cost in China accounts for 18.6 percent of the nation's GDP, almost doubling the figures in the United States and Japan.

 

"Deepening the China-ASEAN collaboration in logistics and improving logistics industry is important in boosting an all-round China-ASEAN economic cooperation," said Liu Zhanfang, vice chairman of the China International Freight Forwarders Association.

 

Currently, China and ASEAN are each other's fourth-largest trading partner, and China-ASEAN trade volume is surging at an average of 22 percent on year-on-year basis. It is released by the State Ministry of Commerce that China-ASEAN trade volume in last year has hit US$130.3 billion, and in the first three quarters this year, bilateral trade volume between China and ASEAN countries has topped US$116.3 billion.

 

(Xinhua News Agency November 3, 2006)