Senior officials from China and ASEAN (Association of Southeast Asian Nations) met here on Tuesday to confer on the preparation for the second China-ASEANE xpo and the China-ASEAN Business and Investment Summit.

They reached consensus on the sponsorship, theme-setting, and promotion of the expo, said an official from the Ministry of Commerce of China.

More than 70 delegates from China, ASEAN's 10 member countries and its secretariat attended the meeting.

The expo is of great importance to the development of relationsbetween China and ASEAN members, said Gary Krishnan, assistant director of Investment and Enterprise Unit of the ASEAN Secretariat.

China decided to advance the date of the second expo to Oct. 19-22 to avoid overlapping with the Festival of Fast-Breaking, a Muslim festival that falls on Nov. 3 this year.

Krishnan said this demonstrates the flexibility of the mechanism of the expo.

Zhang Xiaoqin, deputy secretary-general of the China-ASEAN ExpoSecretariat, told delegates that the second expo will highlight the idea of ASEAN merchandise entering Chinese market and Chinese enterprises investing in ASEAN countries.

The first China-ASEAN Expo was held on Nov. 3-6 last year in Nanning, the capital city of south China's Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region. The expo attracted 18,000 Chinese and overseas businessmen and over 300,000 visitors.

A total of 1,505 companies participated in the exhibition, including 516 overseas businesses. During the four-day exposition,Chinese and foreign companies signed 129 contracts worth nearly 5 billion US dollars and Chinese domestic investors inked 102 contracts worth 47.5 billion yuan (about 5.75 billion US dollars) with their domestic partners.

Source: Xinhua