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

China's safeguard measures on imported beef are designed to help the domestic cattle industry weather its current difficulties rather than to restrict normal trade, said He Yongqian, a spokeswoman for the Ministry of Commerce, on Thursday.

"On December 31, 2025, the Ministry of Commerce issued an announcement to implement safeguard measures on imported beef. The measures have been implemented in the form of country-specific quotas and additional tariffs for quantities exceeding the quotas. Specifically, starting from the third day after the quantity of beef imports from a particular country reaches its annual quota, importers of beef from that country must pay an additional 55 percent tariff on top of the currently applicable tariff rate," He explained the measures at a press conference in Beijing.

"I would like to emphasize that the implementation of safeguard measures on imported beef is a temporary step designed to help the domestic industry navigate through current difficulties, rather than to restrict normal beef trade. China's market remains open, and China is willing to work with all parties to jointly maintain a stable and healthy international trade environment," said He.

The measures are in effect from Jan 1, 2026 to Dec 31, 2028, and will be progressively relaxed at fixed intervals during the three-year period, according to the ministry.

For products originating from developing countries or regions, safeguard measures shall not apply if the import share of an individual country or region does not exceed 3 percent, and the total import share of all such countries and regions does not exceed 9 percent. However, safeguard measures will apply to these countries or regions starting from the following year if the conditions are not met.

China's safeguard measures on imported beef not designed to restrict normal trade: spokeswoman