The State Council Information Office held a press conference on the 8th to introduce the situation of China ASEAN economic and trade cooperation, as well as the 22nd China ASEAN Expo and the China ASEAN Business and Investment Summit. Vice Minister of Commerce Yan Dong said that this year's East Expo will be held in Nanning, Guangxi from September 17 to 21, 2025, with the theme of "Empowering Development with Digital Intelligence, Leading the Future with Innovation - Building a Community of Shared Future with the New Opportunities of China ASEAN Free Trade Zone 3.0". Chinese and foreign leaders and other important guests will attend the opening ceremony together. About 3200 enterprises from 45 countries will participate in the exhibition, and new artificial intelligence pavilions, new quality productivity pavilions, blue economy, foreign trade excellent products and other exhibition areas will be set up. The total exhibition area is about 160000 square meters, focusing on showcasing the latest achievements of cooperation between China and ASEAN countries. Yan Dong introduced that in recent years, under the strategic guidance of the leaders of both sides, China and ASEAN countries have deepened practical cooperation in various fields and maintained a good momentum in economic and trade exchanges. The scale of trade has achieved new growth. China has remained the largest trading partner of ASEAN for 16 consecutive years, and ASEAN has been China's largest trading partner for 5 consecutive years. In 2024, the bilateral trade volume between China and five ASEAN countries, including Vietnam, Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand, and Singapore, will all exceed 100 billion US dollars. Among them, the bilateral trade volume with Vietnam and Malaysia has exceeded 200 billion US dollars. From January to July this year, the trade volume between China and ASEAN reached 597 billion US dollars, a year-on-year increase of 8.2%, accounting for 16.7% of China's total foreign trade during the same period. Investment cooperation has achieved new heights. As of July 2025, the cumulative two-way investment between China and ASEAN has exceeded 450 billion US dollars, and Chinese enterprises have completed a cumulative engineering contracting amount of 480 billion US dollars in ASEAN. Both sides actively expand cooperation in areas such as digital economy, e-commerce, and green development, and the cooperation in emerging fields has achieved significant results. Industrial integration achieves new development. Faced with the impact of unilateralism and protectionism on the global supply chain, China and ASEAN adhere to multilateral cooperation to jointly maintain the stability and smoothness of regional supply chains. The cooperation between the upstream and downstream of the production and supply chains of both parties has become closer. A number of parks and interconnectivity projects are steadily advancing, and both sides are further promoting industrial integration and promoting regional economic and social prosperity and development. Regional economic integration has achieved new breakthroughs. The China ASEAN Free Trade Area 3.0 negotiations have been fully completed, and for the first time, a comprehensive cooperation framework covering the "hard connectivity" of digital infrastructure and the "soft connectivity" of rules and standards has been systematically constructed, achieving rule upgrades. The high-quality implementation of the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) has further improved the level of regional trade and investment liberalization and facilitation. The sub regional cooperation between China ASEAN Eastern Growth Area, Lancang Mekong and other regions is steadily advancing, and the institutional dividends of trade and investment facilitation are further released. The field of China ASEAN regional economic integration is constantly expanding and deepening. Li Qingshuang, Vice President of the China Council for the Promotion of International Trade, said that the 22nd China ASEAN Business and Investment Summit will be held in Nanning on September 17-18, inviting more than a thousand representatives from Chinese and ASEAN governments, enterprises, research institutions, and other organizations to attend. The overall arrangement of this summit is "4 main events+N supporting economic and trade activities+1 concurrent event". We will focus on artificial intelligence, hold the China ASEAN Business Leaders Forum, release a series of initiatives and research reports on artificial intelligence industry cooperation around international cooperation, and announce the establishment of the China ASEAN Business Council Artificial Intelligence Professional Committee. Lu Xinning, member of the Standing Committee of the Party Committee of Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region and Vice Chairman of the Autonomous Region People's Government, said that the 22nd East Expo and Summit will focus on two aspects: economic and trade cooperation and artificial intelligence display, with four new characteristics: high AI content, high commercial content, high new content, and high gold content. For the first time, a 10000 square meter artificial intelligence museum and a new quality productivity museum will be established, and nearly 200 leading artificial intelligence companies and start-up teams will be showcased together. In the 160000 square meter pavilion, nearly 3200 enterprises participated in the exhibition, more than 10000 enterprises attended the procurement negotiation, 7 ASEAN countries contracted the pavilion, and 33 countries jointly built the "the Belt and Road" participated in the exhibition, with foreign enterprises accounting for 38%. We will hold 15 new product debut events and release nearly 70 heavyweight products with market potential; For the first time, a special invited partner mechanism has been established for the China Council for the Promotion of International Trade at the provincial, municipal, and municipal levels. Over 80 economic and trade exchange activities have been held, and it is expected to sign more than 100 major investment projects and a large number of trade orders in digital economy, green economy, and other fields. (New Society)