The 18th China-ASEAN Expo and the concurrent China-ASEAN Business and Investment Summit concluded on Sept 13 in Nanning, the capital of South China's Guangxi Zhuang autonomous region.

A total of 179 deals worth a record-high combined value of over 300 billion yuan (about $46.59 billion) were signed during the expo. The total value marks an increase of 13.7 percent over the previous edition, showed data released by the expo secretariat at the closing ceremony.

A total of 148 economic and trade promotion activities and 26 high-level forums took place during this year's expo, covering industrial chains, industrial capacity cooperation, customs and health.

With an exhibition area of more than 100,000 square meters, this year's expo set up 5,400 booths for offline exhibitors. Over 1,500 enterprises participated in the in-person exhibitions.

The exhibition area for foreign countries was about 20,000 square meters, up 13.4 percent year on year, said the organizer.

The 19th China-ASEAN Expo is preliminarily scheduled for Sept 16 to 19, 2022, with Malaysia as the Country of Honor, said Wang Lei, secretary-general of the expo secretariat.