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Sino-ASEAN trade pact due Saturday

By Li Xiaokun (China Daily)
Updated: 2009-04-11 08:37

China will sign an investment agreement with ASEAN on Saturday, marking the completion of talks on the world's largest free-trade area (FTA) in terms of population.

The pact will be inked at the 12th China-ASEAN Summit (10+1) in Pattaya, Thailand, to be attended by Premier Wen Jiabao, the Foreign Ministry announced on Wednesday. Wen left Beijing and arrived there for the meetings on Friday.

Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao (L) greets officials as he arrives for the 14th ASEAN Summit and Related Summits at U-Tapao airport near Pattaya April 10, 2009. [Agencies]

"It's like a good medicine with time-release properties taking full effect after a decade," Wang Yuzhu, an ASEAN studies expert with the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS), told the website of Shanghai-based Xinmin Evening News.

China and the ASEAN launched the talks in 2000 and have already signed two agreements on trade of goods and services under the FTA. The FTA will be initiated in 2010, benefiting a combined population of 1.9 billion.

By then, bilateral trade volume would amount to $1.2 trillion, transforming the area into the world's third-largest FTA, Xinhua said on Thursday.

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While Wang said the sudden announcement of the investment agreement is largely propelled by the financial crisis, he excluded the possibility of a sharp drop in tariff or surprising investment stimulating policies in the new agreement, saying negotiations between China and the ASEAN have continuously facilitated bilateral investment.

Gu Yuanxiang, an expert on world affairs with the CCASS, said for ASEAN member countries whose economies suffered in the financial crisis, the agreement comes at exactly the right time.

"Now China, with huge foreign exchange reserves, is of great importance to the region," he told Shihua Financial Information.

Zhang Xuegang, a scholar with the China Institute of Contemporary International Relations, said the agreement, signed during the economic downturn, is a declaration from Beijing to reject trade protectionism.