Scholars from China and the ASEAN said in Hanoi Saturday the ASEAN-China trade relations, which have seen remarkable improvements in recent years, will thrive amid the future establishment of China-ASEAN Free Trade Area (CAFTA).

With a fast-growing economy and large population, China has great potentials for ASEAN businesspeople and investors, Denzil Abel, representative of the Secretariat of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) said at an international conference starting in Hanoi on Saturday.

He predicted that the trade and economic ties of the two sides will be broadened and deepened strongly after the CAFTA formation.

At the one-day conference entitled "ASEAN-China Trade Relations: 15 Years Development and Prospects" held by the Center for ASEAN and China Studies under the Vietnamese Academy of Social Sciences, the academy's vice president Nguyen Xuan Thang said "the CAFTA will create a new foundation for economic and trade relations between the two sides to thrive," given that their trade turnovers surged 20 times to over $160 billion in 2006 from nearly $8 billion in 1991.

Under the CAFTA, China and the older ASEAN members -- Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore and Thailand -- will impose zero tariffs on most goods in 2010, and Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar and Vietnam will follow suit in 2015, Thang noted.

Li Wannan from the Institute of Southeast Asia Studies of Jinan University in Guangzhou, China said, "China's rapid and sustainable economic growth and deep opening of the Chinese market, which is pushed by the accession to the World Trade Organization, will greatly drive the increase of trade, foreign direct investment between China and the ASEAN, as well as other cooperative fields and projects."

As a reciprocal and win-win economic arrangement, the CAFTA will promote the clasp of bilateral and multilateral relations, she said, noting that Chinese President Hu Jintao, during his visits to ASEAN countries in 2005, put forth his proposal that China-ASEAN trade should reach 200 billion dollars in 2010.

Lattana Thavonsouk from Laos' Institute of Foreign Affairs said, "With the endeavor to build the CAFTA, it is required to accelerate the tariff reduction process, ensure the full and efficient implementation of the agreement on trade in goods, and press ahead with the negotiations on the agreement on trade in services and on investment so as to complete the building of the CAFTA on time."

Special attention must be paid to poor newer members of the ASEAN, namely Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar and Vietnam, to enable them to catch up with the rest of the region, he stated.