In 2013, the trade volume between China and ASEAN has amounted to 210.56 billion dollars and China has become the ASEAN's largest trading partner. So far China has granted zero-tariff treatment to the products from six old member states of ASEAN and will do so to that of its four new member states by 2015.

At present the member states of ASEAN have implemented zero-tariff policy on most goods except for some sensitive ones such as sugar, fruits, rice, some meat products, coffee, and tobacco and so on.

In the 15th ASEAN Cooperation framework agreement meeting held from the 9th to the 13th this month, more than 100 representatives of the member states of ASEAN negotiated and promoted the implementation of the opening up agreement under the cooperation framework, in the hope of smoothly establishing the AEC by 2015. And then ASEAN will be able to further strengthen zero-tariff policy and to achieve overall zero tariff implementation.

As reported by the media, the bilateral trading volume between China and ASEAN had increased from 54.767 billion dollars in 2002 to 400.1 billion dollars in 2012, which was 7.3 times as big as the figure in 2002, and the annual growth rate was 22%.

What's noteworthy is that the great trade deficit of China in the trade with ASEAN comes to narrow down. The China official data shows that before then China's trade deficit with ASEAN accounted for about 15% of the bilateral trade volume, and in some years it could amounted to more than 20%. But in 2012, China's export amounted to 204.3 billion while its import was 195.8 dollars and the surplus of China was 8.5 billion dollars.

So far the member states of ASEAN have been negotiating about the measures to deal with the trade barriers that influence exporting and importing. The measures include that develop systems to enable the exporters themselves to confirm the place of origin of goods so as to provide the exporters with more options and set up an ASEAN trade database, and offer trade measures and related information to the member states so that trading will be more convenient.

China will also actively take steps to expand imports from the ASEAN. China will strengthen the cooperation with ASEAN in terms of customs and quality checking, and promote some concerned countries to export farm products to China, and organize investors in groups to the member states of ASEAN for trading activities.

During the past decade the two-way investment between China and ASEAN has accumulated to 100.7 billion dollars. ASEAN has become the fourth largest economic entity that China directly invests in, just after HONGKON, British Virgin Islands and Cayman Islands. In addition, China has employed about 120 thousand local workers. Besides, the two-way tourism between China and ASEAN is expanding at a larger scale. In 2012 the amount of Chines tourists traveled to ASEAN had reached 7.32 million, the figure of which increased 2.6 times compared to that of ten years ago. And China became its second biggest tourism market.

Past progress shows that the China-ASEAN free trade area is of mutual benefits and is in their both interests. The China-ASEAN free trade area effectively accelerates the progress of their bilateral trade and investment and deepens and widens their trade cooperation. In order to strengthen the trade cooperation with ASEAN, China still needs to strengthen their cooperation in customs, inspection, transportation and finance so as to create advantages for cooperation to make the trading and investing more convenient. Furthermore, the entrepreneurs of both China and ASEAN should improve the business operation in their own trade zone and develop markets with their own strategies.