Nanning serves as key hub connecting Chinese market to ASEAN region

Nanning City, in south China's Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, will launch a campaign to promote fruit sales as part of efforts to further leverage its role as a vital distribution hub for Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) agricultural products—particularly fruits—to enter the Chinese market.

Known as China's "fruit basket", Guangxi, a top fruit-producing region, also serves as the main portal for fruits such as durians and mangosteens from ASEAN and Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) countries to enter the Chinese market.

From January to April 2024, Guangxi's import and export volume with ASEAN reached 139.63 billion yuan (about 19.25 billion U.S. dollars), marking a 16.3 percent year-on-year growth.

In 2024 alone, Guangxi imported nearly 2.5 million metric tons of ASEAN fruits, with a total value of approximately 35 billion yuan, accounting for over one-third of China's total ASEAN fruit imports.

"Riding the momentum of RCEP policies, more fruits from ASEAN countries and high-quality products from RCEP member states are being brought into China's vast market of 1.4 billion people through Guangxi as the first-stop, which formed a supply chain model of 'produced in ASEAN, distributed via Guangxi, and sold across China,' bringing ASEAN fruits to dining tables nationwide. Thai durians and mangosteens, Vietnamese coffee, Indonesian palm oil, and other premium ASEAN and RCEP products are now making their way into the homes of ordinary Chinese families," said Zhu Yanling, deputy director-general of the Department of Commerce of Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region.

Building on the establishment of the China-ASEAN (Nanning) Fruit Trading Center, Nanning will accelerate the development of a comprehensive import-export supply chain system for ASEAN fruits.

"Nanning now hosts key platforms such as a land port-type national logistics hub and a major national cold-chain logistics base. A number of high-standard fruit trading markets and cold-chain facilities have already been established. Today, Nanning stands as the largest fruit trading center in Guangxi," said Xu Kefeng, vice mayor of the Nanning Municipal People's Government.

Nanning serves as key hub connecting Chinese market to ASEAN region

The outskirts of Abadan, a major oil-refining hub in southwestern Iran, were targeted in a U.S. missile attack on Sunday, according to the semi-official Tasnim news agency, while the Iranian army claimed that its air defense units had downed a U.S. MQ-9 drone in western Iran on the same day.

Abadan, located in Khuzestan province, is home to Iran's oldest oil refinery and bordering Iraq. The city had been targeted by U.S. strikes earlier in the week, as military confrontation between the United States and the Islamic republic have escalated sharply.

No casualties were reported in Sunday's attack, the Tasnim report said, citing Khuzestan's deputy governor for security affairs Valiollah Hayati.

According to a report by Iran's official news agency IRNA on Sunday, the air defense units of the Iranian army had shot down a U.S. MQ-9 drone and intercepted an American cruise missile in Iran's west.

Meanwhile, the U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) said on X that its military personnel on Sunday found unidentified remains at the site of an Iranian attack in Jordan, where the attack killed two U.S. service members and left another missing two days earlier.

An examination process to verify the remains is ongoing, CENTCOM's post said.

Separately, CENTCOM also confirmed that one American service member died on Saturday in northern Iraq while handling unexploded ordnance from a downed Iranian attack drone, and a second service member sustained minor injuries and remains under medical care.

The U.S. military has launched several waves of strikes against Iran's military and infrastructure targets for more than a week, claiming that the attacks are in response to the Iranian armed forces' targeting of vessels in the Strait of Hormuz, and aimed at "degrading Iran's ability to threaten commercial shipping".

Iran has responded with waves of missile and drone attacks targeting U.S. military bases and facilities in the region.

US strikes Iranian oil hub, Tehran claims downing US drone