China and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) held a ceremony on Thursday to mark the establishment of a free trade area involving eleven states and a population of 1.9 billion.
The free trade area was officially established on January 1 and boasts some $4.5 trillion in trade volume.
Trade between China and the six founding ASEAN members - Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Thailand and Singapore - is now duty-free for over 7 thousand products.
"Let's take the free trade area as an opportunity to lift China-ASEAN relations to a new high," Huang Mengfu, vice chairman of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, said at the ceremony, as quoted by the China Daily paper.
The ceremony took place in the southern Chinese city of Nanning.
In accordance with the establishment free trade area, the average tariff on goods from ASEAN countries to China is reduced from 9.8% to 0.1%.
The six founding ASEAN members have cut the average tariff on Chinese goods from 12.8% to 0.6%.
A zero-tariff rate for 90% of Chinese goods is expected to extend to the four new ASEAN members, Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar and Vietnam, by 2015.
BEIJING, January 7 (RIA Novosti)
