A ship unloaded 565 tons of dragon fruit imported from Vietnam at the Dalian container terminal in Dalian, Liaoning province, on April 27, 2020. [Photo by Yu Xinwen/for chinadaily.com.cn]
BEIJING, June 12, China Daily/ANN - China is willing to strengthen trade, investment and economic cooperation with the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) as the regional bloc becomes an increasingly important trading partner, the Ministry of Commerce said on Thursday.
Even though China witnessed dropping trade volumes with other major trade partners, such as the European Union and the United States, since the start of the novel coronavirus outbreak, the country's trade with Asean surged 4.2 percent year-on-year to 1.7 trillion yuan ($240 billion) in the first five months of this year, with the bloc replacing the EU as China's largest trading partner this year, Customs data showed.
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