Vietnam conflict won\\\'t hit China-Asean trade
Sunday, 8 June 2014
BEIJING, June 7 (Xinhua): China's economic cooperation with the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) will not be held back by the dispute with Vietnam and recent riots there which targeted foreigners.
The issue is not one between China and Asean, but an issue with one particular member of the bloc. China and Asean should not let the disturbance in Vietnam distract from their primary objectives of growth and regional cooperation.
Close cooperation between China and Asean is a result of globalisation, and contributes to regional stability and prosperity.
Mutually beneficial cooperation has been, and will continue to be a common goal for China and Asean, who are both at a stage of accelerated industrialisation and urbanisation and share similar development goals and tasks.
Trade between China and Asean has proved resilient despite the ambivalent world economic recovery and growing protectionism. Trade rose 10.9 per cent to US$444 billion last year, exceeding the 7.6 per cent increase in China's total foreign trade.
China is the largest trading partner of Asean and Asean has emerged as China's third largest partner, a major investment destination and an important tourist destination. Behind these figures are frequent person-to-person, capital and information exchanges.
Take investment between China and Malaysia for example. China's leading railway car manufacturer CSR is building a manufacturing and maintenance centre in Malaysia, while Malaysia has invested in two industrial parks in southwest China.
As the China-Asean synergy takes off, data from SWIFT, a global provider of secure messaging services, showed that Singapore has overtaken London as the second largest yuan offshore centre as Chinese companies use it as a stepping stone to Asean as a whole.
China and Asean are working on a free trade area, the biggest among developing countries, and plan raise trade volume to $1.0 trillion by 2020. With the current state of affairs, the goal is in sight.
Reform in China is invigorating both at home and aboard: the Chinese economy grew 7.4 per cent year on year in the first quarter, still at the top of all major economies in the world.
As economic upgrades speed up and more attention is paid to the quality of growth, China still has much to explore in Asean.