[Special attention·China-ASEAN Expo]

From September 17th to 21st, the 22nd China-ASEAN Expo and China-ASEAN Business and Investment Summit were held in Nanning, Guangxi. Among the series of exhibition keywords summarized by the AI ​​digital person of the China-ASEAN Expo, hot words such as "China-ASEAN Free Trade Area Version 3.0", "Mutual Recognition of Standards" and "Interconnection" are particularly eye-catching.

This is the Nanning International Convention and Exhibition Center in Guangxi taken on September 17. Photo by Xinhua News Agency reporter Cao Yiming

This year marks the 15th anniversary of the establishment of the China-ASEAN Free Trade Area and will also be the year of the signing of the 3.0 protocol for the Free Trade Area. This makes this China-ASEAN Expo even more special. Since its opening, the 160,000-square-meter exhibition area has been crowded with people. More than 3,200 companies from 60 countries are here to share opportunities, explore business opportunities and discuss the future.

This grand event allowed the world to observe the latest results of China and ASEAN countries’ high-quality implementation of the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP), the comprehensive completion of the China-ASEAN Free Trade Area 3.0 negotiations, and the continued advancement of regional economic integration and economic and trade cooperation. In the context of rampant unilateralism and protectionism, China and ASEAN countries have demonstrated to the world their confidence and strength in adhering to openness and cooperation through the China-ASEAN Expo.

Open cooperation surges

Since the China-ASEAN Free Trade Area 3.0 negotiations were launched in November 2022, they have gone through nearly two years and nine rounds of formal negotiations, and were substantially concluded in October last year. On May 20 this year, the China-ASEAN Special Economic and Trade Ministers' Meeting was held online. China and ASEAN jointly announced the comprehensive completion of the China-ASEAN Free Trade Area 3.0 negotiations. On July 10, the China-ASEAN Foreign Ministers' Meeting was held in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. The two sides agreed to submit the consultation results of version 3.0 of the Free Trade Area to the leaders' meeting in October this year for approval and signature, clearly sending a clear signal to promote regional economic integration and create a high-level regional free trade network.

A series of cooperation consensus reached by the top leaders of both sides were vividly displayed at the China-ASEAN Expo.

In the exhibition area, previous "star products" such as Cambodian rice, Thai latex pillows, Vietnamese mahogany furniture, Indonesian cat poop coffee, and Malaysian Musang King durian are still hot-selling. There are also many new companies from ASEAN countries making their debut with new products. Specialty products such as Cambodian handmade cultural and creative products, Indonesian palm oil delicacies, Malaysian probiotics, and Philippine intangible cultural heritage fabrics have set off another round of rush to buy new products from ASEAN countries. In the exhibition halls of various countries, activities such as live streaming and on-site experience are taking place in turn. Many exhibitors from ASEAN countries hang up signboards with words such as "Inviting Agents" and "Looking for Distributors in China" on their booths, hoping to promote their new products to the vast Chinese market as soon as possible.

At this year’s China-ASEAN Expo with the theme of AI, various countries also brought more “technological” exhibits. The Malaysian Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation, the Indonesia Telematics Association, the Brunei Innovation Laboratory and other institutions organized groups to participate in the exhibition for the first time. Emerging scientific and technological achievements such as smart medical care, green energy AI applications, and "Digital Economy 4.0" were all on display. They complemented China's "black technologies" such as large AI models, AI wearable devices, intelligent application platforms, robots, and drones, presenting a rich picture of scientific and technological cooperation across national borders.

At the 2025 China-ASEAN Artificial Intelligence Ministers’ Roundtable held on September 18, countries also announced the launch of the China-ASEAN National Artificial Intelligence Application Cooperation Center and released a number of important cooperation results. Through this China-ASEAN Expo, people can foresee the wonderful scene when the China-ASEAN Free Trade Area 3.0 arrives in the future and regional cooperation expands from traditional trade to more future-oriented fields such as digital economy, technological innovation and new energy.

As Myanmar Prime Minister Nyuso said, the current China-ASEAN Free Trade Area has entered the 3.0 era. China and ASEAN have conducted more in-depth cooperation in various fields, especially the digital economy, green economy and other fields, sharing the fruits of development and bringing more opportunities to the development of each country. "Now is the best time for China and ASEAN countries to have friendly exchanges and carry out mutually beneficial economic and trade cooperation."

Stimulate new momentum for regional economic integration

As the core platform for China-ASEAN open cooperation, the CAEXPO and the Summit have always been aimed at serving the construction of the China-ASEAN Free Trade Area and shoulder the mission of promoting regional economic integration. For more than 20 years, the CAEXPO platform has brought together massive resources such as enterprises, goods, services, projects, funds, and information from China and ASEAN countries. It has continued to create business opportunities for enterprises from both sides to explore markets for each other, promoted the implementation of a large number of major mechanisms and projects, and promoted and witnessed the upgrade of the China-ASEAN Free Trade Area from version 1.0 to version 2.0 and version 3.0.

The CAEXPO’s role in promoting the implementation of version 3.0 of the China-ASEAN Free Trade Area has also become increasingly prominent. On September 17, the China-ASEAN Expo released the Blue Book "China-ASEAN Economic and Trade Cooperation Outlook Report", setting up a special chapter to conduct an in-depth analysis of the content of version 3.0 of the free trade area. The Blue Book points out that version 3.0 of the China-ASEAN Free Trade Area is a high-quality upgrade that is system-based, rule-based, and oriented to emerging fields. Unlike versions 1.0 and 2.0, which focus on goods tariff preferences and investment in services, version 3.0 incorporates new issues such as digital economy, green economy, supply chain interconnection, standards and conformity assessment procedures into the terms. The blue paper also clearly identifies "Free Trade Zone 3.0, digital economy, green development and artificial intelligence" as the four major pivots for future cooperation, and proposes specific implementation paths for the next stage.

In addition, at the 2025 China-ASEAN Economic and Trade Cooperation Dialogue Event, the RCEP Trade Facilitation Industry Cooperation Exchange Meeting, and the RCEP Economic and Trade Cooperation High-end Dialogue held during this China-ASEAN Expo, experts and scholars from various fields gathered together to discuss new trends in regional economic integration and explore effective measures to further promote regional cooperation. Through the platform of the China-ASEAN Expo, companies from various countries not only witness the vigorous vitality of regional cooperation, but also gain early insight into market opportunities, take the lead in key areas such as digital and green economy, and promote regional economic and trade cooperation to higher quality and deeper levels.

Pampasak Longchanthala, associate professor at the School of Economics and Business Administration at the National University of Laos, said that the dialogue and exchanges during the China-ASEAN Expo can not only effectively provide advice and suggestions to the government, but also provide practical reference for the business community and the business community, which will help further consolidate the China-ASEAN comprehensive strategic partnership.

In recent years, the China-ASEAN Expo and summits have continued to expand their platform functions, extending from serving China-ASEAN (10 1) to RCEP and the joint construction of the "Belt and Road", enhancing the influence of China and ASEAN as a whole region in the world, not only adding new opportunities and stimulating new momentum for regional economic integration, but also continuously making new contributions to economic globalization.

As Shi Zhongjun, Secretary-General of the China-ASEAN Center, pointed out, the completion of the China-ASEAN Free Trade Area 3.0 negotiations is expected to further reduce tariffs and non-tariff barriers and promote regional economic integration. In the context of economic globalization encountering countercurrents, China and ASEAN have become each other's "place of opportunity" and "safe haven" due to the synergy of their production and supply chains, and have prepared a buffer space for jointly responding to external challenges. This important role and significance to the global multilateral economic and trade system has also attracted much attention.

Looking to the future, the effective implementation of version 3.0 of the China-ASEAN Free Trade Area will be conducive to comprehensively expanding cooperation between China and ASEAN countries in emerging fields, promoting the deep integration of the production and supply chains of both parties, and injecting greater certainty into regional and global trade.

With the help of the China-ASEAN Expo, China and ASEAN countries will continue to accelerate the pace of regional opening up and cooperation, continuously improve the level of trade and investment cooperation, implement RCEP with high quality, strengthen market docking, and improve the level of "hard connectivity" of facilities and "soft connectivity" of rules, so that the ship of China-ASEAN Free Trade Area 3.0 can set sail and sail towards a broader blue ocean, radiate to more countries in South Asia, East Asia and other regions, and make greater contributions to regional economic development and global economic recovery.