Posted by Arno Maierbrugger on September 25, 2013
The ten-member bloc of ASEAN is expected to surpass the US as China’s second largest trading partner behind the European Union within three to five years, Deputy Director-General of China’s Ministry of Commerce, Liang Wentao, said at a press conference in Beijing on September 23.
Currently, trading volume between China and the US is only $40 to 50 billion higher than the trading volume with ASEAN. Looking at the growth rate, Liang said he is optimistic that ASEAN would "very soon" overtake the US to become China’s second largest trading partner.
He said in the first eight months of 2013, two-way trade between China and ASEAN reached $284.31 billion year-on-year, up 12.5 per cent, accounting for 10.5 per cent of the country’s total foreign trade during the same period.
In 2012, bilateral trade between China and ASEAN totaled $400 billion with an average annual growth rate of 22 per cent, 7.3 times higher than that of ten years ago. Trade volume between China and the US rose 6.6 per cent year-on-year from January to August 2013.
Trade between China and ASEAN was mainly boosted by the China-ASEAN Free Trade Agreement which came into effect in January It encompasses the largest free trade area in terms of population and third largest in terms of nominal GDP.
