China's Ministry of Commerce has voiced its support for strengthening mutual investment with ASEAN member states across emerging sectors such as the digital economy, green development, and the blue economy. The announcement was made by Wang Liping, Director-General of the Department of Asian Affairs under the Ministry of Commerce, during a press conference held in Beijing on September 1st, which was organized by the State Council Information Office to preview the upcoming 23rd China-ASEAN Expo and the China-ASEAN Business and Investment Summit scheduled for September.

Wang stated that China is ready to collaborate with ASEAN nations to build a secure, stable, smooth, and efficient regional industrial and supply chain system, aiming to foster mutually beneficial cooperation in this regard. On the front of emerging sector collaboration, Beijing supports deepening mutual investments in the digital economy, green growth, and maritime economic activities. By leveraging platforms like the "Two Countries, Twin Parks" initiative and cross-border industrial parks, both sides intend to promote efficient coordination across research and development, innovation, manufacturing, and practical application scenarios. The goal is to create complementary and deeply interconnected emerging industry ecosystems.

In terms of enhancing regional connectivity, China plans to vigorously develop multimodal transportation models, including combined rail-sea and river-rail-sea transport, to boost the efficiency of port operations. These efforts aim to eliminate bottlenecks in cross-border logistics, improve the efficiency of resource allocation, and facilitate the seamless flow of key products and services between China and ASEAN. Furthermore, both parties will continue to advance mutual recognition arrangements for standards and conformity assessment, which is expected to reduce compliance costs for enterprises, elevate trade facilitation levels, and provide a stable and predictable market environment for cross-border business ventures.

On the topic of digital and intelligent empowerment, Wang highlighted that China encourages enterprises from both sides to actively utilize modern technologies such as artificial intelligence, big data, and the Internet of Things. This approach is designed to enable information connectivity across production, logistics, and trade operations, activate the potential of data elements, and ultimately build more resilient industrial and supply chains.

Yan Dong, Vice Minister of Commerce, also present at the conference, noted that as of July this year, the cumulative two-way investment between China and ASEAN, along with the total project contracting turnover completed by Chinese enterprises in the region, have both surpassed the $515 billion mark. He emphasized that practical cooperation in emerging sectors has yielded significant results, solidifying the status of both sides as each other's most dynamic investment partners. Cooperation on industrial and supply chains is deepening, with steady progress being made on the China-Malaysia and China-Indonesia "Two Countries, Twin Parks" projects, as well as the China-Laos cross-border economic cooperation zone.