China-ASEAN FTA to be one of world’s three pillars
People’s Daily Online, China
China-ASEAN FTA to be one of world’s three pillars
8 September 2005
As China and ASEAN are stepping up the construction of a free trade area (FTA) between them, the value of imports and exports of this zone will hopefully exceed that of the NAFTA (North America Free Trade Agreement) by 2010 and its GDP will likely be higher than that in the European Union market. These three, China-ASEAN free trade zone, NAFTA and the EU, will become the three pillars of the world economy.
These were the remarks by Wang Jinzhen, spokesman of China Council of Promotion of International Trade (CCPIT), in Xiamen, Sept.7.
Wang believes that by 2010, the China-ASEAN free trade zone, once completed, will have a population larger than those in the NAFTA and the EU. Although its GDP will still be lower than the two regions¡¯, imports and exports, he claimed, will outrace NAFTA but fall behind the EU.
By People’s Daily Online
