KUALA LUMPUR, Nov 20 – Chinese Premier Li Keqiang will be visit Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia from Friday to Monday. On top of his agenda will be promoting cooperation between China and the ten ASEAN members towards a community with common destiny, hoping to boost regional economic growth and maintain financial stability.
Premier Li will attend a series of events, including the 18th China-ASEAN leaders’ meeting, the 18th ASEAN-China, Japan and South Korea leaders’ meeting and the 10th East Asia Summit. He will discuss how to coordinate and push forward the development of the 21st Century Maritime Silk Road with ASEAN leaders.
He will also hold discussions with Japan and S.Korea, who are not ASEAN members, on how to expand cooperation in finance, food security, telecommunications, poverty reduction and maritime issues. During the four-day visit, Premier Li also hopes to accelerate talks on the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership and the China-Japan-S.Korea free trade zone with the goal of establishing an East Asian economic community by 2020.
So far, China has been the largest trade partner for the ASEAN countries, while the ASEAN is the third for China. As well as attending the regional meetings and discussions, this will be the premier’s first official visit to Malaysia at the invitation of Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak.
The two will talk about ways to enhance cooperation in trade, investment, infrastructure construction, finance, and education as well as people-to-people exchanges. A series of agreements on cooperation in these areas are also expected. According to Chinese Commerce Ministry, Malaysia has been China’s biggest trade partner in the ASEAN countries for seven consecutive years, and the third largest trade partner for China in Asia. Bilateral trade volume has surpassed 100 billion USD.
