China Fuels Asian Growth, Integration: Experts

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Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Thursday, October 17, 2002

China Fuels Asian Growth, Integration: Experts

The quick rise of China's economic power is boosting regional trade growth and economic integration, some 300 experts from Southeast Asian nations and other parts of the world agreed.

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The quick rise of China's economic power is boosting regional trade growth and economic integration, some 300 experts from Southeast Asian nations and other parts of the world agreed.

At a two-day seminar which kicked off Thursday in Bangkok under the title of "Future with China," participants are exchanging their views on the Chinese implication on Asian economy, China and regional integration, opportunities arising from China's "west development" campaign and other related issues.

"The growing Chinese economic power has deep and far-reaching effects for Asia. By becoming a member of the World Trade Organization (WTO), the Chinese leaders demonstrated to the world that they will play by the international rules and make friends with all countries, especially those in Asia," Thai Deputy Prime Minister Korn Dabbaransi said in a keynote speech at the forum.

"Many in the region have come to realize that China can be a reliable partner. Bilateral trade volume between China and Southeast Asian nations has reached 40 billion US dollars a year and the region's exports to China are bigger than those to any other place in the world," he said.

"Furthermore, leaders of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and China have agreed in last November to set up the world's largest free trade area," said Korn, who also chairs the Thailand-China Friendship Association.

"China assisted ASEAN during the 1997 Asian financial crisis and responded to all cooperation schemes initiated by ASEAN," he noted.

"Now, China is ready for the world, and we should also ready for future cooperation with China," said the deputy premier.

Sarasin Viraphol, an expert on China issues, said ASEAN countries should set sight on China's western region, especially those bordering Southeast Asia.

"In the coming five years, Yunnan and Guangxi provinces will strive to open to the outside world as part of China's 'west development' campaign, which will offer huge business opportunities for ASEAN countries," he said.

"There is little doubt that China has been a major source of economic integration within the Asian region, particularly since 1990," said Nicholas Lardy, a famous China researcher from the Brookings Institution in New York.

"China's role as a regional integrator is most clearly seen within East Asia. China had now emerged as South Korea's second-largest export market and for the first time ever in August 2001, China displaced the United States as the largest source of Japan's imports," he said.

Trade between ASEAN and China also developed rapidly in the 1990s, expanding from 8 billion dollars in 1990 to 40 billion dollars in 2000.

"Moreover, China's rapidly growing domestic market is already remarkably open, and China's expanding trade volume has become a major engine for growth in Asia as well as a force for increasing regional economic integration, "said Lardy.

The forum between Oct. 17 and 18 here is co-organized by Thailand's Nation media group and Asia News Network, an association of 14 newspapers in the region.

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