China-ASEAN free trade zone future pillar of world economy: official
(Xinhua)
Updated: 2005-09-08 12:48

XIAMEN -- The China-ASEAN free trade zone is expected to become one of the three major pillars of the world economy after its establishment in 2010, a trade promotion official has said.

The China-ASEAN free trade zone, which will report a population of 2 billion, a combined GDP of 2 trillion US dollars and a total trade volume of 1.2 trillion dollars, will exceed the North American free trade zone in terms of trade volume upon its establishment, said Wang Jinzhen, spokesperson of the China Council for the Promotion of International Trade.

By 2020, it will top the European Union free trade zone with 4 trillion US dollars of gross domestic product, Wang said at a roundtable on international trade and economic cooperation in Xiamen, a port city in east China's Fujian Province.

China, Brunei, Malaysia, Indonesia, Myanmar, Singapore and Thailand gave tariff cuts to each other on 7,455 kinds of commodities as of July 20, 2005. The practice, in line with the Trade in Goods Agreement of a Framework Agreement for Overall Economic Cooperation between China and the countries of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations signed last November, paved the way for the establishment of a free trade zone, said Wang.

Trade between China and the ASEAN reached 105.9 billion US dollars last year, a rise of 35.3 percent over the 2003 volume. The ASEAN has been China's fifth largest trade partner for 12 consecutive years.

Bilateral trade in the first six months of this year approximated 60 billion US dollars, according to statistics provided by China's General Administration of Customs.

The ASEAN groups Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Malaysia, Myanmar, Laos, Thailand, the Philippines, Singapore and Vietnam.