Senior officials from China and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) have agreed in Wuyishan in Fujian Province to further improve co-operation in agriculture, the information industry, human resources, investment and exploitation of the Mekong River.

After a two-day consultation which closed on Tuesday, they reached a consensus that China-ASEAN relations have good prospects and should be advanced to a new level.

The officials agreed China and ASEAN are co-operating more closely on economic as well as political issues.

ASEAN, China's fifth biggest trading partner for 10 consecutive years, consists of Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Viet Nam.

In 2002, China and ASEAN signed a landmark framework agreement on comprehensive economic co-operation, which started the construction of the world's largest free trade area, the China-ASEAN free trade area.

Some ASEAN nations have already begun to see benefits from co-operation with China.

China and Thailand signed a contract last June to abolish tariffs on 188 kinds of vegetables and fruits. China has also promised to offer special favorable tariff treatment to Viet Nam, Cambodia and Laos.

In the field of political co-operation, the Standing Committee of China's National People's Congress approved China's accession to the Treaty of Amity and Co-operation in Southeast Asia in June this year.

China is the first to join the treaty among all the major countries outside of Southeast Asia.

China will formally join the treaty at the leaders' meeting between ASEAN and China in Bali, Indonesia, in October.

China launched a feasibility study for upgrading the China section of the planned Pan-Asia Railway Project shortly after the proposal for the project was approved by the ASEAN Communications Ministerial Meeting in 2001, said Liu Jiang, vice-minister in charge of the State Development and Reform Commission.

Liu made the remark at the Fifth Ministerial Meeting of the ASEAN-Mekong River Basin Development Co-operation Programme, which closed on Tuesday in Kunming in Yunnan Province.

He said China will begin to upgrade the progress of the Cambodia section of the project and is willing to consider offering assistance to the Cambodia section.

Liu called for more efforts to produce a workable plan for building and upgrading the railway project through consultation among the countries involved.