The four-day China-ASEAN Expo will open Wednesday in Nanning, capital city of southwest China's Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region.

The expo, jointly sponsored by the Ministry of Commerce of China, the trade and economic authorities of the ten ASEAN members and the ASEAN Secretariat, will be attended by the government heads including Prime Minister Bounnhang of Lao, Prime Minister Hun Sen of Cambodia, Prime Minister Soe Win of Myanmar, Vice Prime Minister Phinij, Vice Premier Pham Gia Hkiem and Vice Premier of China Wu Yi.

According to the organizing committee, a total of 1,505 companies from domestic and abroad will participate in the expo. Among them, 19 companies are from World's Top 500. There will be more than 200 categories of products from 11 sectors presented at the CAEXPO, such as machinery, household electric appliances, electronic and IT products, automobile and spare parts, hardware and construction materials, pharmaceutical and chemical products,and light industry and textile products.

The total exhibition area will exceed 60,000 square meters, with 2,506 display stands. So far there have been more than 10,000 people participating in the meetings and the exposition.

A variety of activities will be held during the expo, including the China-ASEAN Business and Investment Summit, investment negotiations and cultural exchanges.

Chong Quan, spokesman for the Ministry of Commerce, said that the CAEXPO would further enhance the mutual understanding between the business communities of China and the ASEAN countries, provide them with more opportunities for cooperation, strengthen the trade and economic cooperation between China and the ASEAN countries and push forward the establishment of the China-ASEAN free trade area.

ASEAN countries are close neighbors to China. In recent years, political ties between China and the ASEAN countries have been developing smoothly, while big progress has been made in bilateral trade, two-way investment, project contracting and labor service.

On the trade front, bilateral trade between China and the ASEAN has been growing at an annual rate of 20 percent since 1990. In 2003, trade between China and ASEAN reached 78.2 billion US dollars, increasing by 42.8 percent over the previous year. The ASEAN has been China's 5th largest trading partner for the recent 11 consecutive years.

From January to September this year, bilateral trade between China and the ASEAN has reached 75.45 billion US dollars, an increase of 35.6 percent. The figure is expected to reach 100 billion US dollars for the entire year.