China, ASEAN discuss new Maritime Silk Road

POTENTIALS

China and the ASEAN countries have labelled the past 10 years the "Golden Decade" for their relations and have coined the term "Diamond Decade" for the next 10 years, which they hope will feature more practical cooperation and regional economic integration.

China is the ASEAN's largest trade partner, while the ASEAN ranks as China's third-largest. Their bilateral trade amounted to 443.61 billion U.S. dollars in 2013, around 5.7 times that of 2003.

The two sides are determined to push this figure to 500 billion U.S. dollars by 2015 and one trillion U.S. dollars by 2020.

Zhang Gaoli said that China will import more than 10 trillion U.S. dollars' worth of goods in the next five years and that its direct outbound investment will surpass 500 billion U.S. dollars.

"The sustained and sound growth of the Chinese economy will continue to drive the world economy and bring benefits to people of ASEAN countries," he said.