"2005 China and the ROK Economic Cooperation Forum'' is held in Beijing today (June 17). About 150 government officials, enterprise leaders and well-known academic personnel from the two countries will have discussions focusing on the economic and trade cooperation, educational exchanges and Chinese industrial upgrade.

The forum is co-sponsored by People Daily and the ROK 2080 CEO Forum. Chinese Minister of Commerce Bo Xilai and former ROK Premier Koh Kun attended the opening ceremony and delivered keynote speeches.

There are three topics for the forum: "The deepening and expanding economic cooperation between China and ROK'', "The educational exchanges between China and the ROK and CEO's role in Sino-ROK economic cooperation'', and "China industrial upgrade and ROK investment in China''.

In recent years, the economic and trade relations between the two countries have been developing rapidly. During the past 13 years since the establishment of diplomatic relations between the two countries, the trade volume between the two countries has been up to more than 90 billion US dollars from 5 billion, an increase of 42.4 per cent. The trade volume is expected to exceed 100 billion US dollars this year. By the end of last year, the ROK had an accumulated investment of 32,753 projects in China, valued at 25.9 billion US dollars. The accumulated number of the projects China invested in the ROK was 91 with value reaching more than 900 million US dollars.

By People's Daily Online