China-Southeast Asia cooperation on NEVs takes center stage at Financial Street Forum 2024

China-Southeast Asia cooperation has been a key topic at the ongoing Financial Street Forum in Beijing, with attendees expressing positive attitudes toward further development.

The Annual Conference of the Financial Street Forum 2024, running until Sunday, is co-hosted by the Beijing government, the People's Bank of China, the National Financial Regulatory Administration, the China Securities Regulatory Commission, Xinhua News Agency, and the State Administration of Foreign Exchange.

At the parallel forum 'China-Southeast Asia Cross-border Investment and Industrial Cooperation for High-quality Development', delegates from government units, industry associations and enterprises shared their views on the importance of economic cooperation between China and Southeast Asian nations, with some keynote speakers highlighting new energy vehicles as a key investment area.

"Southeast Asia has become a region with the most concentrated overseas investment by Chinese automobile companies, particularly in new energy vehicles (NEVs). In 2023, over 60 percent of NEVs sold in Southeast Asia were Chinese brands. The business community has been an active participant and promoter of the high-quality development of China-Southeast Asia economic and trade cooperation," said Ren Hongbin, chairman of the China Council for the Promotion of International Trade.

"The collaboration between Indonesia and China in the area of EV ecosystem, electric vehicle ecosystem, in the past ten years has been phenomenal. Through this collaboration, the Chinese investor, Chinese corporation come to Indonesia, develop the sector, working together with the local cooperation with the governments, building something from almost scratch into something really big," said Stefanus ade hadiwidjaja, CEO of Indonesia Investment Authority.

China has been the largest trading partner of ASEAN for 15 consecutive years, and for the past four years, the two have mutually been each other's largest trading partners. As of the end of July, mutual investments had exceeded 400 billion U.S. dollars.

China-Southeast Asia cooperation on NEVs takes center stage at Financial Street Forum 2024

China-Southeast Asia cooperation on NEVs takes center stage at Financial Street Forum 2024

China-Southeast Asia cooperation on NEVs takes center stage at 2024 Financial Street Forum

Multiple payment facilitation methods provided by Chinese banks have vigorously boosted the business transactions at the ongoing 136th China Import and Export Fair, or popularly known as the Canton Fair.

This edition of the fair commenced in Guangzhou, capital of south China's Guangdong Province, on Tuesday, and will last until Nov 4. Themed "serving high-quality development, promoting high-level opening-up," the fair gathers more than 30,000 exhibitors to showcase 1.15 million new products.

To improve payment convenience, this year's Canton Fair has set seven bank branches and extended counters, 12 ATMs, and eight foreign currency exchange machine, supporting cash exchanges between 18 foreign currencies and the Chinese yuan.

Meanwhile, all exhibitors at the fair are equipped with foreign currency POS machines, providing foreign currency card swiping, mobile payment and other services, further enhancing the compatibility and convenience of payment methods.

At a currency exchange counter under the Bank of China in the venue, exchanging hundreds of U.S. dollars into Chinese yuan cash only need three minutes.

"I need to exchange Chinese currency, the Chinese yuan, so over there, we have machines, which you just need your passport, you put in your dollars, and it's very fast and very convenient," said an overseas exhibitor at the fair.

"With valid documents and certificates, overseas visitors can exchange five major currencies, including U.S. dollars, British pounds, euros, Japanese yen and Hong Kong dollars, into Chinese yuan banknotes, or they can exchange them into digital RMB. Nearly 200 business outlets have set up special foreign-related service windows, which can provide comprehensive services for them, including account opening, cash exchange, and coin purses," said Zhou Zhixin, a second-level expert at Bank of Communications Guangdong Branch.

In addition, this session of the Canton Fair also replaced paper guidebooks by mobile applications, where visitors can learn about the exhibits at different periods, actual stall number of different exhibiting enterprises, detailed information of every single exhibit, and contacts of all exhibitors, and the application also allow buyers send virtual business cards to make appointments with exhibitors for negotiations.

Payment convenience at Canton Fair facilitates trade transactions