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The 11th Joint Council Meeting of the ASEAN-China Centre (ACC) was held on Tuesday, 14th December 2021, via video conferencing. The meeting was co-chaired by Yang Mulia Dr. Hajah May Fa’ezah binti Haji Ahmad Ariffin, Permanent Secretary (Economy), Ministry of Finance and Economy and Her Excellency Ms. Jiang Qin, Charge d’Affaires ad Interim, Mission of the People’s Republic of China to ASEAN. 

Attending the meeting virtually were Council Directors for the ASEAN Member States and the People’s Republic of China; and the Secretary General of the ACC, His Excellency Mr. Chen Dehai. 

In her opening remarks, Yang Mulia Dr. Hajah May shared on the following: 

• Since the establishment of ASEAN-China Free Trade Agreement (FTA), bilateral trade between ASEAN and China has doubled from USD 235.5 billion dollars in 2010 to USD516.9 billion dollars in 2020. China continues to be ASEAN’s largest trading partner since 2009 while ASEAN became the largest partner for China for the first time in 2020; 
• Encouraged ACC work programs to leverage on existing several initiatives that have been put in place at the regional level including the ASEAN Digital Comprehensive Recovery Framework; the ASEAN Digital Masterplan 2025; and the Bandar Seri Begawan Roadmap (BSBR) to Digitalisation; 
• To continue working towards the enhancement of the ASEANChina FTA to ensure the agreement remains up-to-date and continues to benefit businesses and communities; and 
• On Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) agreement, Yang Mulia Dr. Hajah May pointed out the need for ACC to play a central role in promoting RCEP to stakeholders through value-added programs to guide producers, investors, businesses and the public to fully understand and utilise the benefits of the agreement.