Surin Pitsuwan, Secretary General of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) will pay an official visit to China regarding bilateral relations and cooperation, said Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Qin Gang on Thursday.

Surin would visit China from March 16 to 22 on the invitation of his Chinese counterpart Yang Jiechi, Qin told a regular news briefing.

Qin said Yang would hold talks with Surin on bilateral relations and pragmatic cooperation as well as international and regional issues of mutual concern during his stay in China. Besides Beijing, Surin would also visit China's Hubei province and Jiangsu province.

"China hopes Surin's visit will strengthen the China-ASEAN strategic partnership," said Qin, adding that enhancing bilateral friendly cooperation was an important component of China's foreign policies with neighboring countries.

China and ASEAN launched cooperation dialogue in 1991 and signed the China-ASEAN Framework Agreement on Comprehensive Cooperation in 2002.

Both sides have seen fruitful cooperation in various areas over the last two decades, said Qin, citing the launch of the China-ASEAN Free Trade Area (FTA) on Jan. 1.

Embracing developing countries, the FTA is the biggest in the world covering a population of 1.9 billion and accounting for about 4.5 trillion U.S. dollars in trade volume.

Trade volume between China and ASEAN reached 21.48 billion U.S. dollars in January, up by 80 percent year on year, with China's exports to ASEAN increasing by 52.8 percent and ASEAN's exports to China rising by 117.3 percent, according to Qin.

Facts have shown that the China-ASEAN FTA serves the fundamental interests of both sides, said Qin. "China is willing to boost exchanges and cooperation in various areas with ASEAN for mutual benefit," Qin said.

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