China and ASEAN should set up a mechanism to facilitate the cooperation on inspection and quarantine against public health risks posed by tremendous people and goods flow after the formation of the China-ASEAN Free Trade Area (FTA), experts and officials said here Thursday.

Besides the mounting pressure of food and health security from the expected huge movement of goods and people, the differences in the inspection and quarantine systems among the 11 FTA countries should be addressed, they said at a China-ASEAN forum.

The free trade zone, scheduled for 2010, is expected to cover nearly one-third of the world's population and create an economy only after the European Union and the North America Free Trade Area.

In 2005, the ASEAN countries received three million Chinese tourists. Meanwhile, more than three million people from the 10- member ASEAN visited China. The bilateral trade in the year reached over 130 billion U.S. dollars, a 15-fold growth from 1991.

It would not be efficient enough for one or two countries to handle the complexity of the diseases within the FTA, so it was necessary to create a mechanism to promote a comprehensive cooperation, they said.

They agreed that China and ASEAN should strengthen cooperation in eight sectors, including working out a memorandum of understanding (MOU) on inspection and quarantine, to enhance the efficiency of law enforcement and the efforts for further development.

After further discussions, the MOU is expected to be signed by December, said Li Changjiang, head of the China's General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine.

Source: Xinhua