Chinese and Southeast Asia's political and business leaders and World Bank officials gathering at an annual business summit in south China have showed great confidence in sound regional economic growth in the region.

"The ratio of regional trade to the world's total has increased by 13 percentage points over the past dozens of years" thanks to rapid regional trade integration which involves China, said Johnnah Joy Phumaphi, vice president of the World Bank at the Fourth China-ASEAN Expo, which opened on Sunday in the southern China city of Nanning, along with the Fourth China-ASEAN Business and Investment Summit.

China and ASEAN (Association of Southeast Asian Nations) countries have witnessed rapid growth in bilateral trade, which increased by 191 times -- from less than 8 billion U.S. dollars in 1991 to 160.8 billion dollars in 2006, an annual average growth of more than 20 percent.

In the first nine months this year, China-ASEAN trade reached 146.5 billion dollars, up 26 percent year on year.

Judging from the current growth momentum, both China and ASEAN members believe bilateral trade would top the mark of 200 billion dollars in 2008, two years ahead the set target.

Participants in the summit agreed that if bilateral trade keeps rising at the present rate of higher than 20 percent, the ASEAN would become one of China's top trade partners in 2010 when the China-ASEAN Free Trade Area is in place.

By that time, the world's most populous free trade area, with a total population of 2 billion, would become a new engine to drive the growth of the world economy, observers said.

Source: Xinhua