China-ASEAN Cooperation Booms at Shanghai Investment Event

SHANGHAI, Apr 2 — China and ASEAN have remained each other’s largest trading partners for years, with bilateral investment developing steadily, according to China Daily. Recently, during the first Overseas Investment and Comprehensive Services Exhibition and Fair held in Shanghai, a matchmaking event themed “Ecological Co-construction · Resilient Growth: China-ASEAN Industrial Cooperation and Sustainable Development” has attracted widespread attention.

“Manufacturing, new energy and digital economy have become new investment hotspots, and the proportion of global FDI flowing into ASEAN’s manufacturing industry has risen sharply, fully demonstrating ASEAN’s investment vitality and development potential,” said Chai Haitao, Executive Deputy Director of the Expert Committee of the China International Investment Promotion Association. He added that China has strengthened cooperation with ASEAN countries through initiatives such as Asian industrial and supply chain cooperation and building a high-standard free trade area network, greatly boosting investment and trade growth in the Asian region.

Luo Yuze, Vice Minister of the Department of International Economic Research under the Development Research Center of the State Council, noted that China’s cross-border investment in ASEAN has exceeded 450 billion US dollars cumulatively, with the flow breaking 34 billion US dollars in 2025, making ASEAN an important region for China’s foreign investment. “Cooperation between China and ASEAN can provide stability on both supply and demand sides, and scale effects and technological iteration can be achieved through industrial chain coordination,” he said.

If traditional manufacturing is the “ballast stone” of bilateral cooperation, digital economy and green technology will become the “dual engines” driving their future growth. Han Bopan, Consul General of Indonesia in Shanghai, stated that cooperation between Indonesia and China in digital economy and high-tech industries has achieved remarkable results in recent years. “Indonesia, as a major digital economy in Southeast Asia, is committed to building a center for the digital ecology in the ASEAN region,” he said, adding that Indonesia and China realized cross-border QR code interconnection in 2025.

Ye Anna, CEO of International Digital Services at Singtel, commented that ASEAN is one of the fastest-growing regions for digital economy in the world, with its digital economy scale reaching 2 trillion US dollars. “Ninety percent of business entities in the region are small and medium-sized enterprises, and there are significant differences in regulatory and data compliance requirements among countries,” she said, noting that Singtel is building a digital and AI infrastructure to help Chinese enterprises expand into the ASEAN market.

Dato Sri Abdul Fattah Abdullah, Chairman of the ASEAN Cooperative Organization, introduced that ASEAN has a total population of nearly 700 million and an overall GDP of 4.5 trillion US dollars. “This matchmaking event has built a high-quality platform for direct docking between ASEAN and Chinese enterprises,” he said.

Chen Shuai, Deputy General Manager of the Overseas Business Department at Bank of Ningbo Head Office, shared experiences in supporting Chinese enterprises to go global to ASEAN, stating that the bank has built a “12+6+N” one-stop overseas service platform. Wang Bin, Chairman of the Enterprise Going Global Consulting Service Working Committee of the China International Investment Promotion Association, emphasized that Chinese enterprises going to ASEAN are undergoing a value transition from “going out” to “integrating in”, with the core being “rooting” in the local area.