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Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Thursday, May 09, 2002

China Predicts Strength of Asian Economic Cooperation

The China-ASEAN Free Trade Area is expected to grow into the world's most populous free trade area after 10 years of development, a senior Chinese official estimates.


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The China-ASEAN Free Trade Area is expected to grow into the world's most populous free trade area after 10 years of development, a senior Chinese official estimates.

"The free trade area will also become the world's largest regional trade block composed of developing nations in terms of its economic scale," Zhou Keren, Vice-Minister of Foreign Trade and Economic Cooperation, told the PRC-Day Seminar at the 35th Asian Development Bank (ADB) Annual Meeting Thursday in Shanghai.

In November 2001, Chinese Premier Zhu Rongji and ASEAN leaders agreed to set up the China-ASEAN Free Trade Area over the next decade. Joint studies and analyses showed that once the area is established, China's exports to ASEAN countries will rise by 55 percent and ASEAN's exports to China will surge by 48 percent.

Zhou estimates that by that time, the free trade area is expected to have grown into an economic zone with some 1.7 billion consumers, generating nearly two trillion U.S. dollars in gross domestic product (GDP), and with total trade value approaching 1.2 trillion U.S. dollars..

The opening of the China-ASEAN Free Trade Area will not only help step up bilateral economic and trade exchanges and boost common economic development, but will also improve existing friendly relations between China and ASEAN nations and help maintain a peaceful and stable situation in Asia with mutual trust among all neighbors. It should also accelerate progress and development in all nations of the region, he added.

He noted that east Asia had the potential for a free trade area, and strengthening ties with east Asian nations would thus become a goal of China's future regional economic cooperation.

As Asia's largest developing country and now a member of WTO, said Zhou, China would more actively participate in developing the region's economy and devote itself to still closer economic and trade cooperation among Asian nations, given the vigorous progress of economic globalization plus the robust momentum of regional economic cooperation in recent years.


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