China ready to work with ASEAN members to build successful FTA 3.0, says Chinese premier

SINGAPORE -- Premier Li Qiang said on Sunday that China is ready to work with Singapore and other members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) to make the China-ASEAN Free Trade Area 3.0 a success and jointly achieve greater development.

Li made the remarks when meeting with Singapore's Acting President Eddie Teo during his official visit to the country.

China is willing to maintain close communication and coordination with Singapore within multilateral mechanisms, work together to uphold multilateralism and free trade, and promote an equal and orderly multipolar world as well as a universally beneficial and inclusive economic globalization, Li said.

Noting that the world has entered a new period of turbulence and transformation with intertwining global challenges, Li said China and Singapore, as friendly neighbors and important partners, should strengthen unity and cooperation. Looking to the future, China is willing to enhance high-level exchanges and strategic communication with Singapore, support each other's core interests and major concerns, deepen mutual political trust, expand mutually beneficial cooperation, and promote the sustained and steady development of China-Singapore relations, better benefiting both countries, the region and the world, said the premier.

Li pointed out that the recent fourth plenary session of the 20th Central Committee of the Communist Party of China (CPC) deliberated over and adopted the recommendations for formulating the 15th Five-Year Plan, providing important opportunities for future cooperation between China and Singapore. China is ready to work with Singapore to tap the potentials of economic and trade cooperation, and expand collaboration in emerging areas such as the digital economy, green development and artificial intelligence, injecting more momentum into each other's modernization processes, he said.

More Singaporean enterprises are welcome to continue exploring China's vast market and share great opportunities for development, said Li, adding that both sides should enhance the exchange of development experience and deepen cooperation in people-to-people sectors.

For his part, Teo noted that China and Singapore have a long history of exchanges and close ties. While this year marks the 35th anniversary of the diplomatic relations between the two countries, bilateral relations are growing with strong momentum, he said.

Singapore congratulates China on the successful convening of the fourth plenary session of the 20th Central Committee of the CPC, Teo said, expressing hopes for China's 15th Five-Year Plan to benefit the region and the wider world.

Singapore is ready to strengthen the alignment of development strategies with China, intensify cooperation in various fields such as economy, trade and people-to-people exchanges, deepen the ASEAN-China comprehensive strategic partnership, promote the reform of the World Trade Organization and build an open world economy, he said.