Upgrade protocol between China, ASEAN facilitates bilateral trade

The signing of the China-ASEAN Free Trade Area (FTA) 3.0 Upgrade Protocol greatly promoted the bilateral trade from logistics, customs clearance to the license application.

The upgrade protocol was signed in Kuala Lumpur on Tuesday, ahead of the 28th China-ASEAN Summit, in the presence of Chinese Premier Li Qiang and Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim.

On Tuesday, after nearly five hours of air freight, over 30 tons of coconuts and durians arrived in Zhengzhou City of central China’s Henan Province from Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Since the opening of the "Air Silk Road" between Zhengzhou and Kuala Lumpur, the number of cargo flights has been increased to once a day, with an accumulated cargo volume of nearly 10,000 tons.

"We have opened a 'green channel' and provided a full-time customs clearance guarantee seven days a week, 24 hours a day. Meanwhile, we have implemented two-part access mechanisms. Fresh products that require laboratory testing can be picked up from the port in advance, significantly reducing total costs for enterprises in terms of warehousing and transportation," said Lu Shiwei, an officer of Zhengzhou Airport Customs.

Nowadays, through the "Air Silk Road", more and more fresh products from Southeast Asia such as durians, mangosteens, and pineapples are transported to central China by air, and a large number of cross-border e-commerce products from Henan Province are also flown to ASEAN countries.

The upgrade protocol not only promotes interconnection and cooperation in areas such as logistics and digital infrastructure, but also strengthens cooperation in areas like electronic bills of lading and the "single window" that enterprises can declare and track the customs clearance process through a "one-stop" platform. It will enhance system compatibility and reducing enterprise costs.

In Lanzhou City of northwest China's Gansu Province, trading company businessmen submitted applications through the "single window" and were able to print out a China-ASEAN Free Trade Area certificate of origin by themselves in less than half a day. With this certificate, enterprises can enjoy a 12 percent and 5 percent tariff reduction when exporting Huaniu apples to Vietnam and Indonesia respectively, which means they can enter the Southeast Asian market with zero tariffs.

Upgrade protocol between China, ASEAN facilitates bilateral trade

Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney's official visit to China signals a policy shift towards building a more pragmatic relationship between the two countries, according to a Canadian researcher.

Carney arrived in Beijing on Wednesday to begin an official visit to China through Saturday, which marks the first trip by a Canadian Prime Minister to the country in eight years.

Robert Hanlon, director and principal investigator of Canada and the Asia Pacific Policy Project (CAPPP) at Thompson Rivers University in British Columbia, told the China Global Television Network (CGTN) that Carney's visit indicates Canada is recalibrating its strategic perception of China, which could cement the foundation for the country's economic diversification efforts and boost the development of bilateral cooperation.

"I think it's a clear message that he has moved Canada's strategy to a much more pragmatic, interest-based, -focused relationship with our trading partners, moving away from values-based narratives that we might have heard on previous governments. Canada has spoken about moving from what the Prime Minister's Office is calling "from reliance to resilience", and that means diversifying our economies and our trade everywhere in the world. And so China being our second largest trading partner, it makes perfect sense for our PM to head to Beijing," he said.

The scholar also noted the huge cooperation potential between the two sides in economic and trade fields, citing Canada's efforts to step up shipments of liquefied natural gas (LNG) and the planned construction of an oil pipeline in Alberta which aims to increase export access to Asian markets. "Canada and China both share tremendous economic opportunities together and so finding ways to enhance our exports. Canada specifically looking to build out its LNG and oil, kind of export market. We know Canada is a major producer of critical minerals and China is a buyer. And so there's a lot of synergy between that kind of those kind of markets," he said.

Canadian PM's visit to China paves way for more pragmatic trade ties: scholar