Members enhance cooperation scale and tighten ties with ASEAN

The Third Pan Pearl River Delta (PPRD) Forum and Trade Fair was held in Yunnan in June, where member provinces and regions made plans to expand co-operation in infrastructure, tourism, agriculture, labor, education and public health. The annual regional event att-racted 11,000 officials and businessmen from the region's 11 members and saw 1,019 projects inked, with a contract value totalling at 198.2 billion RMB.

The Guangdong delegation signed 458 contracts, valued at 78.9 billion RMB.

This year, the forum featured a meeting between chiefs and executive chiefs of the PPRD members with trade ministers from member states of ASEAN for the first time.

MEMBERS EXPANDING COOPERATION

This year's forum yielded planning for furthering ties in energy and in building a comprehensive transportation net-work within the PPRD region. Members also sought opportunities to co-launch more cultural and travel projects.
Contract value of transportation and energy infrastructure construction pro-jects occupied 28 percent of the fair's total. These projects included power generation, highway construction, en-ergy and transportation infrastructure, urban water supply, sewage treatment and other public facilities and env-ironmental-protection-related projects.
Cooperation deals on manufacturing accounted for 37.6 percent of the fair's total contract value. Projects include chemical, machinery, building material and light industry. More enterprises are relocating their labor-intensive and high-energy-consumption industries from Guangdong, Hong Kong and Macao to other PPRD member pro-vinces and regions in south and southeast China.

Meanwhile, investors from Guangdong, Hong Kong and Macao showed great interest in launching cultural and travel projects with Hainan, Sichuan and Yunnan, and signed contracts valued at 8.5 percent of the fair's total. Private entrepreneurs attending the fair were interested in investing in inland provinces to take advantage of the abundant resources there.

PPRD AND ASEAN

During the PPRD-ASEAN meeting, the discussion focused on enhancing both economic exchanges and freer bilateral trade.

Somkid Jatusripitak, Deputy Prime Minister of Thailand, said ASEAN and the PPRD could achieve rapid develop-ment through co-operation. He prop-osed an annual PPRD and ASEAN meeting and the building of an ex-change network between the two regions.

The nine mainland members of the PPRD did more than 46 billion U.S. dollars worth of trade last year with ASEAN, a rise of 14 percent from 2004.

As the two most vibrant regional economies, the PPRD and ASEAN have a combined population comparable to that of China coming together under a free trade environment; only time will tell what economic and social miracles this mammoth synergy will perform.

GUANGDONG-ASEAN TIES

Statistics showed ASEAN region has become Guangdong's fifth largest bus-iness partner. In 2005, Guangdong-ASEAN trade valued at 36.9 billion USD, or 28 percent of China-ASEAN trade and investment from ASEAN countries to the province was estimated at 415 million USD, up 7.2 percent year-on-year. Meanwhile, Guangdong enterprises had invested 256 million USD to set up 105 plants and businesses in ASEAN countries.

During the PPRD-ASEAN meeting, Governor Huang Huahua of Guangdong, called on ASEAN countries to set up electronic, IT and petrochemical bus-inesses in Guangdong and also en-couraged Guangdong enterprises to join oil mining and forest development projects in ASEAN region.    

Editor: Yan