BEIJING, July 17 -- The upcoming ASEAN-China foreign ministers' meeting will focus on deepening cooperation to promote regional economy and trade, a senior Thai official said in an interview with Xinhua Wednesday.

    The 42nd Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) Ministerial Meeting and the 16th ASEAN Regional Forum will be held at Thailand's southern resort island of Phuket on July 20 and 23 respectively.

    Chinese Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi will attend a series of meetings from July 22 to 23, including the foreign ministers' unofficial consultation of the East Asia Summit, and the foreign ministers meeting of the 16th ASEAN Regional Forum.

    The two sides will discuss how to deepen the contacts to stimulate economic growth and the development of transportation infrastructure in the region, Vitavas Srivihok, Director-General of the Department of ASEAN Affairs of Thailand's Ministry of Foreign Affairs told Xinhua.

    Regional bio-fuel market development, border trade and investment facilitation are other issues to be raised at the meeting, he said.

    He also mentioned that the ASEAN-China trade agreement will be signed at the economic ministers' meeting scheduled to be held in Thailand in August, so as to complete the negotiation process on the ASEAN-China Free Trade Area (FTA) by 2010.

    SOUNDBITE: Srivihok said, "When we have the FTA agreement with any country, in particular with very important dialogue partners like China, I think we can increase the volume of trade and investment within the two regions."

    Despite the spread of the global financial crisis, mutual investment between China and ASEAN continued to increase throughout 2008.

    According to official statistics, China-ASEAN mutual investment had reached some 60 billion U.S. dollars by the end of 2008. Bilateral trade had risen to 231.1 billion dollars, nearly 14 percent up.

    Over the issue of ASEAN-China Center, Vitavas said a memorandum of understanding (MOU) may be signed at the 15th ASEAN Summit and Related Summits in Thailand in October. The MOU is aimed at promoting trade, investment, tourism and information exchange between ASEAN and China in private sector.

    ASEAN has signed MOUs with Japan and the Republic of Korea to set up such centers in Tokyo and Seoul. It will also sign such an agreement with Russia at the upcoming ASEAN meeting in Phuket.

    Xinhua News Agency correspondents reporting from Bangkok.

(Source: XHTV)