Nanning will host the 12th China-ASEAN Business and Investment Summit from Sept 18 to 19, a parallel activity to the China-ASEAN Expo.

About 1,500 State leaders, government representatives, officials of commerce and industry chambers, experts, scholars and reporters from China and ASEAN countries will attend the series of activities during the summit, which is themed "Jointly Building the 21st Century Maritime Silk Road, Creating a New Blueprint for Marine Cooperation".

This year's summit will include a business leaders' forum, a commercial affairs legal cooperation symposium, a trade facilitation research report release ceremony and the launch of a China-ASEAN e-commerce platform.

This year's summit is expected to build a platform for Chinese enterprises to learn more about the business environment in Southeast Asia, promote inter-connectivity and trade facilitation in the region and strengthen legal affairs cooperation.

There will also be dialogues between Singaporean shipbuilders and Chinese port managers, managers from the China-Malaysia industry parks in Qinzhou, of Guangxi Zhuang autonomous region, and Kuantan, of Malaysia, as well as entrepreneurs from China and Thailand.

The China Council for the Promotion of International Trade and the national chambers of commerce and industry of ASEAN countries have built four multilateral and bilateral cooperation mechanisms. These have played an active and important role in promoting communication and cooperation between the business communities of China and ASEAN countries.

The summit hopes to further strengthen cooperation with the East Asia Business Council and other existing multilateral and bilateral economic and trade mechanisms and invite more enterprises from China and ASEAN to participate.

During the legal symposium, it is expected that the China-ASEAN Legal Cooperation Proclamation will be signed as well as the China-ASEAN Business Joint Meditation Center Agreement. Drafting the contents of bilateral business law training for the future years will is also on the agenda. There will also be legal training courses on two specific fields held during the symposium.

The summit's secretariat will start research on trade facilitation with the ASEAN commerce and industry chambers and will cooperate with Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar and Vietnam to study nontariff measures, customs efficiency, infrastructure facilities and institutional environment for trade between China and ASEAN.

During the past 11 summits, the event has hosted more than 70 special activities in the fields of finance, trade, telecommunication and the service sectors. The ASEAN state leaders have communicated with Chinese entrepreneurs in roundtable dialogues six times, signing project contracts worth about $22 billion. State leaders from Thailand will talk with the Chinese entrepreneurs face-to-face this year.

Forty-two State leaders from China and ASEAN member countries, including President Xi Jinping, more than 1,000 ministers and senior officials from international and regional organizations and more than 12,000 business leaders and researchers have taken part in the past 11 summits.

Contact the writers through liyang@chinadaily.com.cn or huoyan@chinadaily.com.cn

(China Daily 09/18/2015 page17)