ASEAN, China celebrate decade-long ties

A Special Foreign Ministers’ Meeting took place in Beijing on August 29 to celebrate the 10th anniversary of the strategic partnership between the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and China.  Foreign ministers from ASEAN members and China at the meeting.Vietnamese Foreign Minister Pham Binh Minh led a delegation to the event. During the meeting, the ministers shared their positive views on the comprehensive development and important achievements in bilateral cooperation during the past decade in all fields, including politics, economics, trade, investment, culture and people-to-people exchange. At present, ASEAN-China cooperation has been implemented deeply and widely through more than 40 mechanisms, with two-way trade surpassing 400 billion USD last year, eight times higher than that of 2003. China is now the largest trade partner of ASEAN, while the latter the third largest of the former. Total two-way investment also rose four times to 100 billion USD in 2012. The number of tourists travelling between the bloc and China reached 15 million, a fivefold increase compared to that of 10 years ago. The ministers said the robust and comprehensive development over the past time has made ASEAN-China relations one of the key pillars in regional cooperation, positively contributing to common peace, stability, development and prosperity. They agreed that in the future, ASEAN and China need to make use of the existing development impetus and recorded achievements to lift their strategic partnership to a new height to make greater contributions to regional peace, stability and development. On this basis, the two sides will continue strengthening dialogue, consultations… [Read full story]