Economic and Trade Cooperation Thrives Under CAEXPO

Written by Zhao Yali / Translated by Chen Zhiying

After 18 years, the China-ASEAN Expo (CAEXPO) has developed into an important platform for opening up and cooperation between China and ASEAN and contributed to the new development pattern. China-ASEAN economic and trade cooperation, under the nurturing of CAEXPO, is flourishing, becoming the most eye-catching field in bilateral cooperation.

CAEXPO not only continuously injects vitality into China-ASEAN economic and trade cooperation, which prospers the China-ASEAN Free Trade Area (CAFTA) but also plays an indispensable role in economic recovery in the post-pandemic era.

Driver for the CAFTA

If CAFTA is a ship, then the tailored-made CAEXPO is no doubt the booster for it to go forward.

In November 2020, China proposed the vision of building CAFTA, the first FTA that faces foreign businessmen and also the largest FTA among developing countries in the world. Since such a great ambition required a pragmatic and effective carrier, CAEXPO thus came into being in 2004 and served the construction of CAFTA with innovative forms and contents. In 2010, CAFTA was built as scheduled, opening a new chapter for China-ASEAN economic and trade cooperation.

Over the last 18 years, CAEXPO has expanded the field of cooperation to customs, inspection and quarantine, logistics and transportation, e-commerce, and cross-border finance from trade in goods and investment. This move promoted the connectivity of regional cooperation, further optimized the environment where resources are allocated freely, and facilitated the implementation of a batch of important projects such as the China-ASEAN Information Harbour, the China-ASEAN Multimodal Transportation Alliance, and the China-Malaysia “Two Countries, Twin Parks”. The development of CAFTA and the “Belt and Road” brought tangible benefits to enterprises of both sides and was thus highly recognized.

A Thai businessman once said: “Each CAEXPO reflects the favorable policies brought by CAFTA, from which we can feel the closer bilateral economic and trade cooperation and the faster pace in building CAFTA.”

If you sow a grain of millet in spring, then you will reap many seeds in autumn. Over the last 18 years, focusing on resource endowment and industrial structure of China and ASEAN countries, and the CAFTA’s cooperation process, the CAEXPO has set up relevant exhibitions to bring business opportunities from the CAFTA to millions of domestic and foreign businessmen, who, thus have policy support and market demand. In this way, the CAEXPO boosts the development of the CAFTA. Through the CAEXPO, featured products like coffee, jewelry, and jade enter the Chinese market and well-known enterprises such as Liugong Group and Yuchai Group go into ASEAN countries.

For CAEXPO, the original aspiration and determination to boost the development of CAFTA have never changed, no matter in the past, at present, or in the future. 

Under the theme of “Sharing RCEP New Opportunities, Building a Version 3.0 China-ASEAN FTA”, the 19th CAEXPO will set up ASEAN and RCEP exhibitions for the first time to display member states’ images, featured products, and cooperation projects and inject new vitality into the Version 3.0 CAFTA.

Vital to economic recovery in the post-pandemic era

Under the COVID-19 pandemic, the impacts of economic downturn represented by shrinking trade and investment emerged. Under such a severe situation, China and ASEAN witnessed closer economic and trade cooperation, with the scale of trade in goods continuously expanding. In particular, the two sides bucked the trend to achieve economic growth under the pandemic. This is inseparable from the CAEXPO. 

In 1991, the trade volume between China and ASEAN was US$ 7.96 billion. In 2020, China and ASEAN became each other’s largest trade partners, with bilateral trade volume reaching US$ 684.6 billion. In 2021, trade volume between the two sides hit a record high against the trend. According to statistics released by the General Administration of Customs of China, the total import and export volume between China and ASEAN in 2021 was nearly US$ 878.2 billion, a year-on-year increase of 28.1%. Again, ASEAN became China’s largest trading partner. 

At the opening ceremony of the 18th CAEXPO, China proposed to enhance development strategy docking with ASEAN and make more contributions to economic revival, specifically, dock with ASEAN countries on ASEAN Comprehensive Recovery Framework, improve regional connectivity, carry out highlight cooperation such as cooperation on smart city, 5G, artificial intelligence, and e-commerce, and strengthen cooperation on sustainable development, to ensure that bilateral trade and investment cooperation grows in depth and substance. At the 18th CAEXPO, 179 international and domestic cooperation projects were signed, with a total investment of more than 300 billion yuan. The total investment of signed projects reached the highest level in history, showing a positive signal of deepening cooperation between China and ASEAN to the world under the pandemic.

Malaysia is the Country of Honor for the 19th CAEXPO. The country’s External Trade Development Corporation Deputy CEO Sharimahton highly commended the CAEXPO, through which enterprises around the world successfully entered the large China-ASEAN market with a 2 billion population. Trade in goods and services was thus driven to increase, injecting impetus into the return of enterprises’ normal operation.

ASEAN is China’s primary partner in anti-pandemic cooperation. At the 18th CAEXPO, a public pandemic prevention and health exhibition under the theme of “enhancing anti-pandemic cooperation, improving public health capacity” was set up to display China’s achievements in pandemic prevention and the business opportunities of the big health industry, so as to promote international anti-pandemic cooperation facing ASEAN. The China-ASEAN International Forum on Traditional Medicine and Tourism was also held to facilitate the building of the health community of a shared future for mankind and boost the strong recovery of the regional economy and trade.

The ever-expanding “circle of friends”

Over the past 18 years, we have met many old friends at the CAEXPO every year, while new faces around the world also show up increasingly. The circle of friends of CAEXPO is expanding after the previous 18 sessions. The future of China-ASEAN economic and trade cooperation is also becoming more and more promising.

The 14th CAEXPO established the “Belt and Road” exhibition for the first time and invited Kazakhstan to be its special cooperation partner, signifying that CAEXPO has realized the linkage of the Belt and the Road.

At the 18th CAEXPO, we can see goods are more diverse, standards higher, and exhibitions better. The RCEP exhibition was set up for the first time, with the participation of Japan, South Korea, Australia, and New Zealand. The RCEP Economic and Trade Business, the Special Training Course on RCEP for National SMEs, and the “Japanese Enterprises Traveling Guangxi” Exchange Meeting were also held during the 18th CAEXPO.

With RCEP’s entry into force and the admission of new members, CAEXPO is expected to expand to “10+N” in the future and realize regional economic integration at a higher level and in a larger scope. It will undoubtedly provide a broader stage for China and ASEAN to lead regional economic cooperation in the new era.

According to the CAEXPO Secretariat, “CAEXPO will continue to play its role as the booster of CAFTA and seize opportunities brought by RCEP’s implementation to extend its services to RCEP and more countries and regions along the Belt and Road from serving ‘10+1’.”

Under CAEXPO, China-ASEAN economic and trade cooperation has achieved balanced development from the initial imbalance featuring strong trade in goods and weak investment and trade in services. It is believed that with the expanding “circle of friends”, China and ASEAN, and even other countries that take part in the CAEXPO, will achieve common prosperity.