At Xinfadi Market, Beijing's largest agricultural products wholesale market, tropical fruit from South Asia is selling fast thanks to reduced tariffs between China and ten ASEAN (Association of Southeast Asian Nations) countries.

"Prices of South Asia fruit are down a lot compared with a few years ago," said fruit salesman Zhao Xinwen. According to Zhao, the price of mangoes imported from Thailand has dropped from 30-40 yuan to 10-12 yuan per kilogram, close to the price of similar domestic fruit.

Low prices have stimulated market demand. Zhao said he can sell five to six tons of imported fruit to his clients in North China everyday.

One year ago, on July 20, 2005, after signing the "Agreement on Trade in Goods", China and ASEAN started to remove trade barriers by launching a tariff reduction plan covering 7,000 categories of products.

According to the agreement, all those products will enjoy zero-tariff rating by 2010 when the China-ASEAN Free Trade Area (CAFTA) is established.

Chongquan, spokesman for the Chinese Ministry of Commerce, told the media last week that China had lowered its import tariff on 3,408 kinds of goods from ASEAN in the past year.

The ASEAN countries also cut their import tariff rate on some products imported from China, the spokesman said.

The lower trade barriers have boosted bilateral trade between China and ASEAN. The Ministry of Commerce said from July 2005 to May 2006, China's import volume from ASEAN reached 74.15 billion U.S. dollars, up 20.6 percent year on year, while China's export to ASEAN grew 23.1 percent to 55.57 billion U.S. dollars.

Thailand's Ambassador to China Jullapong Nonsrichai said the implementation of the "Agreement on Trade in Goods" and the zero-tariff deal on agricultural products launched under the Early Harvest Program (EHP) had greatly expanded bilateral trade between Thailand and China.

Statistics from the Thailand Embassy said Thailand-China trade volume amounted to 10.02 billion dollars in the past five months this year, a year-on-year surge of 19.6 percent. China exported 3.46 billion dollars worth of goods to Thailand, and imported goods worth 6.55 billion dollars.

Nonsrichai expressed his belief that the establishment of CAFTA will offer great business opportunities for both Thailand and China, and enable the two sides to increase bilateral trade to 50 billion dollars by 2010.

Malaysia's Ambassador to China Dato' Syed Norulzaman believes China's rapid economic growth will make it a major importer, and this is bound to generate more business opportunities for Malaysian companies in the booming Chinese market.

The Chinese government is promoting the progress of CAFTA in a positive way. "In the coming years, more tariffs will be reduced over the 7,000 categories of products from China and ASEAN before CAFTA comes onstream in 2010," Wang Wei, director of the Tax System and Tax Regulations Department under the Chinese Ministry of Finance told Xinhua.

Experts said the establishment of CAFTA will accelerate intra-regional trade and investment by creating a market of 1.8 billion consumers, the biggest in the world. By the year 2010, bilateral trade volume between China and ASEAN will reach a record 200 billion dollars.

ASEAN groups Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam.