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.

The central parity rate of the Chinese currency renminbi, or the yuan, strengthened 79 pips to 7.0392 against the U.S. dollar Thursday, according to the China Foreign Exchange Trade System.

In China's spot foreign exchange market, the yuan is allowed to rise or fall by 2 percent from the central parity rate each trading day.

The central parity rate of the yuan against the U.S. dollar is based on a weighted average of prices offered by market makers before the opening of the interbank market each business day.