NANNING, Aug. 18 (Xinhua) -- The 13th China-ASEAN Expo will be held from Sept. 11 to 14 in the southern city of Nanning, Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, local authorities announced Thursday.

More than 2,000 companies will attend the expo, said Wang Lei, secretary-general of the expo.

Exhibition halls will be established for Vietnam, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar and Thailand, he said.

Initiated in 2004, the expo is an important platform to promote trade and relations between China and ASEAN.

China is ASEAN's largest trade partner, and ASEAN has been China's third largest partner since 2010. Mutual trade volume was nearly 472 billion U.S. dollars in 2015, data showed.

Founded in 1967 in Thailand, ASEAN is made up of Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam.