Nil tariffs to spur a trade boom

ASEAN-CHINA trade relations are set to thrive amid the establishment of the China-ASEAN Free Trade Area (CAFTA), it has been predicted.

With a fast-growing economy and large population, China has great potential for ASEAN businesspeople and investors, Denzil Abel, representative of the ASEAN Secretariat, said at an international conference on Saturday.

He predicted that the trade and economic ties of the two sides will be broadened and deepened strongly after CAFTA was formed.

At the one-day conference entitled "ASEAN-China Trade Relations: 15 Years Development and Prospects" held by the Center for ASEAN and China Studies under the Vietnamese Academy of Social Sciences, the academy's vice president Nguyen Xuan Thang said "the CAFTA will create a new foundation for economic and trade relations between the two sides to thrive."

He said this would be possible given that their trade turnovers surged 20 times to more than US$160 billion in 2006 from nearly US$8 billion in 1991.

Under the CAFTA, China and the older ASEAN members - Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore and Thailand - will impose zero tariffs on most goods in 2010, and Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar and Vietnam will follow suit in 2015, Thang noted.

Li Wannan from the Institute of Southeast Asia Studies of Jinan University in Guangzhou said: "China's rapid and sustainable economic growth and deep opening of the Chinese market, which is pushed by the accession to the World Trade Organization, will greatly drive the increase of trade, foreign direct investment between China and the ASEAN, as well as other cooperative fields and projects."

As a reciprocal and win-win economic arrangement, the CAFTA will promote the clasp of bilateral and multilateral relations, she said, noting that Chinese President Hu Jintao, during his visits to ASEAN countries in 2005, put forth his proposal that China-ASEAN trade should reach US$200 billion in 2010.