NANNING — Southwest China's Guangxi Zhuang autonomous region and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) have rolled out a plan to build the China-ASEAN Digital Trade Center for boosting regional digital economic cooperation.

Headquartered in Nanning, capital of Guangxi and the permanent venue of the China-ASEAN Expo, the center is designated as a digital economy development park with office buildings, digital creative industries, platform operations, big data, the Internet of Things, among other facilities. The project is also important for the construction of the China-ASEAN information harbor.

The regional government said on Aug 18 that the center will be built in two phases. By the end of 2021, 5 billion yuan (about $724 million) will be invested in the center, allowing it to accommodate 4,000 enterprises, with more than five overseas warehouses and exhibition centers built in ASEAN countries.

Between 2022 and 2025, another 20 billion yuan will be invested, allowing the center to nurture more than 10,000 digital-trade market entities, 10 of which will each have a turnover of more than 1 billion yuan, while another 100 will have a turnover of more than 100 million yuan each.

Li Changguan, chairman of the Guangxi committee of China Council for the Promotion of International Trade, said that China and ASEAN countries are highly complementary in the field of digital economy and have great potential for cooperation. The establishment of the center can better serve economic and trade cooperation between the two sides in the future, he said.