“Asean expects more opportunities to export products including agricultural produce to China. Thailand, for instance, hopes for more exports of frozen seafood and beverages to China as tariff on them have already been reduced but exports remain low,” said Sakarn Saensopa, consul /commercial at the Royal Thai Consulate-General in Nanning, capital city of the Guangxi Zhuang autonomous region.

“Thailand is also interested in exporting other products from the service and manufacturing sectors to China, such as auto parts,” Saensopa said. “We also promised to open more of our market by cutting more tariffs in order to have a freer flow of trade and investment.”

According to Saensopa, the combined Asean-China region offers an impressively large market, boasting a massive 1.8 billion consumers.

“Working together in a truly win-win partnership, Asean and China can attract trade and investment from all over the world and make the Asean-China region a new ‘growth pole’,” Saensopa said.

Bilateral trade between China and Asean economies reached $232.64 billion in the first five months this year, up by 18.9 per cent year-on-year. Last year, trade hit a record high of $514.8 billion.

“The credit (of trade growth) must go to China’s Belt and Road Initiative. Amidst the global economic instability, the Chinese government introduced the Maritime Silk Road which has led to greater connectivity and cooperation among the economies along the route,” Saensopa said.

The Belt and Road Initiative, or the Silk Road Economic Belt, was launched in 2013 to promote trade and economic cooperation among economies along the routes, and to further open up markets in a mutually beneficial manner.

Many economies involved in the initiative are undergoing infrastructure renovation, which is enhancing logistics and boosting cross-border trade.

“China and Asean have great trade potentials, other than tropical fruits and seafood, now that the initiative has broken regional barriers by renovating infrastructure and facilitating communications,” said Lin Guijun, trade expert and professor at the Beijing-based University of International Business and Economics. “The energy sector, for instance, has seen increasing trade and cooperation.”

Yan Bingzhong, director of the China Renewable Energy Engineering Institute, told chinanews.com earlier in June that clean energy, such as solar power is a field that has great potential for cooperation, as some Asean countries have abundant energy resources but lack development technology.