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Senior Officials of ASEAN and the People's Republic of China met on 3-4 June in Beijing for the 21st ASEAN-China Senior Officials' Consultation. Both sides reaffirmed the importance of ASEAN-China Strategic Partnership and agreed to further strengthen the close ties.
The Meeting agreed that even though both sides worked to finalise and implement existing plans and development programmes, simultaneously there was a need to look ahead and identify future targets and developments goals in line with the dynamic nature of the Partnership, which is now in its 24th year. China has remained ASEAN's largest trading partner since 2009 while ASEAN remains China's third largest trading partner since 2011. The two-way trade volume reached USD 366.5 billion in 2014, a 4.6% growth year-on-year. Both sides agreed to work towards achieving USD 500 billion two-way trade volume by end-2015 and USD 1 trillion by 2020. The upgrading of the ASEAN-China Free Trade Agreement, when realized, would contribute to achieving the ambitious trade volumes.
As the current Plan expires at end-2015, both sides are working to finalise a new Plan of Action to be endorsed by the ASEAN plus China Post Ministerial Conference in August 2015. The new Plan, which covers the period 2016-2020, will be framed to meet new challenges, enhance the economic ties between both sides, assist in narrowing the development gap in ASEAN and contain practical measures to deepen and enhance the mutually beneficial partnership.