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A high-level forum on the China-Southeast Asian Association Nations (ASEAN) Free Trade Zone will be held on February 24 in Guilin, a scenic resort city in south China's Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region.
Government officials and scholars from the ASEAN nations including Viet Nam, Laos, Cambodia, Singapore and Thailand will be invited to confer on free trade topics with their Chinese counterparts.
China's southern and southwestern provinces, autonomous regions or municipalities like Guangxi, Yunnan and Chongqing either border or are located adjacent to the ASEAN regions, and a free-trade future will benefit not only the country's national interests but the interests of business enterprises and nongovernmental organizations in these countries.
A Chinese-ASEAN Free Trade Zone would enjoy a client base of 1.7 billion people, a combined GDP of approximately 2 trillion US dollars and a combined trade volume of 1.2 trillion, making it the world's largest free trade zone.
The forum will be sponsored jointly by the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Trade and Economic Cooperation and by the government of Guangxi.
(Xinhua News Agency February 19, 2003)
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