NANNING, Sept. 19 -- Every day, peddlers throng in a bustling wet market on a remote section of the China-Vietnam border. Their daily lives may soon be changed by a new age of cross-border trade centered on e-commerce.

Before the four-day China-ASEAN Expo closed in south China's Nanning on Friday, a slew of deals on e-commerce were inked between companies from China and members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN).

They include agreements over online sales programs for agricultural products from Malaysia, Vietnam and the Philippines. These schemes will provide more convenient cross-border transaction for both local sellers and Chinese consumers.

IRRESISTIBLE TREND

China and its neighbors to the southwest have a long history of cross-border trade. In ancient times, border residents bartered goods without using a medium of exchange like money.

When money was invented, cross-border trade became more frequent. But the biggest challenge offline transactions encounter lies in trade settlement.

At Puzhai Border Zone in Guangxi's Pingxiang City, three Vietnamese women place a table besides an ATM to provide currency exchange services for merchants and tourists.

In several minutes, they close a deal with two tourists from northeast China, who exchange 3,000 yuan (488 U.S. dollars) for 9.9 million Vietnamese dong (VND).

"Over 100 Vietnamese fruit vendors do business in the zone, and nearly all of them have directly exchanged currencies via this private currency trading emerging since the early 1990s," said Vietnamese fruit peddler Do Thi Ngan.

She said that doing business with Chinese is a good choice, but trading the Chinese currency Renminbi, or yuan, for the VND is not easy. Since exchanges have until recently had to be conducted via the U.S. dollar in local banks, the procedure was very complicated and extra fees were involved.

Good news is an Agricultural Bank of China branch in Dongxing City of Guangxi established a currency trading center in April, which allows direct convertibility of the yuan and the VND.

But the border merchants may need more than that. They need a safer and more convenient way to do business. E-commerce may lead them to the dream.

China has been accelerating e-commerce cooperation with the ASEAN by encouraging cross-border transaction settlement in yuan and establishing online payment platforms.

Yao Songtao, deputy head of the financial office in the Guangxi government, said local authorities plan to start approving Renminbi settlement accounts set by foreign institutions in the region.

Gao Hongbing, senior vice president of Alibaba Group, the largest e-commerce player in China, said the company has already prepared payment platforms for cross-border transactions.

The United Overseas Bank (China) has also developed a suite of cross-border Renminbi solutions, said Eric Lian Voon Fui, the bank's president.

The combination of Renminbi cross-border settlement and e-commerce will shorten the distance between China and other countries, prompting fast transactions and saving costs, Yao said.

E-COMMERCE IN THE AIR

E-commerce has gained great popularity in China among enterprises and individuals. Young Chinese are increasingly inclined to shop by clicking their computer mice rather than by selecting in shops.

The combined transaction volume of e-commerce in the Chinese mainland jumped 29.8 percent from a year ago to 5.9 trillion yuan in the first half of 2014, data from China's Ministry of Commerce showed.

Hutama Sugadhi, president of Indonesia-based Pt Aneka Coffee Industry, came to the China-ASEAN Expo to seek an e-commerce partner to explore the Chinese market. "The market will be broader and e-commerce will inject new vitality," he said.

Like Sugadhi, Chinese e-commerce enterprises are likewise eager to take a share of the emerging ASEAN market after great success domestically. The ASEAN shows huge potential, with around 200 million Internet users in the region, a third of its total population.

Alibaba has turned its attention to ASEAN e-commerce by investing 249 million U.S. dollars in the Singapore Post in May to jointly establish a platform for international e-commerce logistics.

Lee Chee Leong, Malaysia deputy minister of international trade and industry, said there is a clear emerging trend for China-ASEAN trade evolving into electronic cooperation.

China is aiming to elevate bilateral trade with the ASEAN to 500 billion U.S. dollars by 2015.