China's trade with Asean growing

The Association of South East Asian Nations (Asean) is now China's fourth largest trading partner, behind the EU, the US and Japan, and with the slowdown in western economies it could become even more important.

Trade between China and Asean was worth $293bn (£185bn) last year, up 30% on 2009. Both sides hope that figure will rise to $500bn by 2015.

The rapid rise in regional trading is largely due to the zero tariff policy introduced at the beginning of last year, which now applies to 9 in 10 goods traded between the two partners.

China has said it intends to implement further measures to make trading with Asean even easier.

The BBC's Ashleigh Ngheim reports.