China will give strong support to the development of the ASEAN Community and integration, Chinese Prime Minister Wen Jiabao said in a speech at the 11th China-ASEAN Summit in Singapore on Tuesday.

"We firmly support ASEAN in building an ASEAN Community with Economic, Security as well as Social-Cultural Communities as its three pillars. China is ready to provide assistance to the ASEAN integration process as its ability permits," Wen said in the speech.

"China will work closely with ASEAN to launch, as soon as possible, the two projects it has undertaken under the Initiative for ASEAN Integration. On this basis, China is ready to actively explore the possibility of undertaking other projects under the Initiative," he added.

"We will implement the initiative of training 8,000 professionals in various sectors for ASEAN in the next five years. China will continue to sponsor various programs to train 2,000 professionals for ASEAN next year," said the premier.

China will continue to support ASEAN's efforts in bridging its internal gap of development, take an active part in the ASEAN sub-regional cooperation, such as ASEAN Mekong Basin Development Cooperation, Great Mekong subregion and the BIMP-EAGA, the prime minister added.

Wen is here in Singapore to attend the 11th ASEAN plus Three (China, Japan and the Republic of Korea) Summit, the 11th China-ASEAN Summit, the third East Asia summit, and the eighth annual meeting of leaders of China, Japan and South Korea.

As a regional cooperation group founded in August 1967, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) comprises Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam.

Source:Xinhua