Mutual Benefits,China and ASEAN Countries

Since the restart of the China-ASEAN dialogue， bilateral trade between the two groups has devel-oped rapidly. On January 1， 2010， the China-ASEAN free trade zone was inaugurated， becomingthe third largest free trade zone in the world， encompassing a population of 1.9 billion and imple-menting preferential policies such as more than 90 percent of goods with zero-tariffs， to enablerapid development of bilateral and multilateral trade between its members. But what impact will China-ASEAN bring to ASEAN countries? At the beginning of its establishment， the officials and experts from China and ASEAN countries expressed that although competition and difficulties would appear， the benefits of such an agreement would outweigh them. They believed that all ASEAN countries should be confident and take advantage of this platform to accelerate regional economic development.