Chinese Vice-Minister of Commerce Gao Yan is confident that bilateral trade between Asean and China will hit the US$500 billion target by 2015.

In the first half of 2013, bilateral trade between China and Asean totalled US$210.56 billion, up 12.2 per cent year-on-year and recorded a 3.6 percentage point higher than the growth of China's foreign trade, she said.

Hence, she is confident of achieving the target if the two-way trade continued to stay on a positive trend.

As of June 30, China's foreign direct investments (FDIs) flow to Asean countries approached US$30 billion, accounting for about 5.1 per cent of China's total outward FDI, she said.

She said Asean has also surpassed Australia, the U.S. and Russia to become the fourth largest destination for China's outward investment followed by Hong Kong, British Virgin lslands and Cayman Islands.

"Currently, about 2,500 businesses with Chinese direct investments have been set up in Asean countries, nearly 120,000 new jobs have been created," Gao said.

The main focus of China's direct investments on Asean countries was power generation, business services, retail and wholesale, manufacturing, mining and finance.

China is currently the top trading partner for Asean while Asean is China's third largest trading partner after Japan and the European Union.

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