Economic ministers hold meetings to deepen China-ASEAN relations

A series of economic ministers' meetings on East Asia co-operation were held on Saturday, and parties involved have had in-depth exchanges of views and achieved multiple consensuses on key international and regional economic and trade co-operation topics, according to an online statement from the Ministry of Commerce on Monday.

Those topics include deepening China-ASEAN (the Association of Southeast Asian Nations) economic and trade co-operations, promoting the construction of version 3.0 of the China-ASEAN Free Trade Area, and the high-quality implementation of the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership agreement, which took effect on Jan 1, the statement said.

They also included enhancing the resilience of regional industrial and supply chains, promoting post-pandemic economic recovery co-operations, and maintaining the multilateral trading system, according to the statement.

The economic ministers' meetings on East Asian cooperation held on Saturday included the 21st ASEAN+1 (China) economic ministers' meeting, the 25th ASEAN+3 (China, Japan, the Republic of Korea) economic ministers' meeting and the 10th East Asia Summit economic ministers' meeting.