Full coverage: Chinese Premier Visits Laos, Attends East Asia Summit

Over the past two decades, China and the ASEAN countries have made great strides in economic and trade cooperation. Since the China-ASEAN Free Trade Area was officially established in 2010, bilateral trade has developed rapidly.

China has become the largest trading partner of ASEAN, while ASEAN has become the third largest of China. Two-way investment between China and ASEAN exceeded 150 billion US dollars by the end of 2015.

Chinese capital is heading for a broader swathe of local industries, extending to new energy and manufacturing sectors as well as infrastructure construction.

China and ASEAN signed infrastructure construction contracts worth over 10 billion US dollars from Janurary to May 2016, an increase of 8 point 2 percent compared to last year.