2026 China (Guangxi)-ASEAN Business Cooperation and Exchange Conference to Be Held Soon

As a key economic and trade side event of the 23rd China-ASEAN Business and Investment Summit (CABIS), the 2026 China (Guangxi)-ASEAN Business Cooperation and Exchange Conference will be held on September 16 in Nanning. Over 200 participants, including business leaders, heads of business associations, and corporate executives from China, ASEAN, and Belt and Road partner countries, will gather to explore shared business opportunities.

The conference, themed "Deepening China-ASEAN Business Cooperation and Sharing New Opportunities under CAFTA 3.0," aims to leverage the multilateral platform strengths of CABIS and the Business Council. It will help businesses capitalize on the policy dividends of the China-ASEAN Free Trade Area (CAFTA) 3.0, build a direct bridge for business-to-business communication, advance the coordinated development of cross-border and cross-regional industrial and supply chains, and contribute to building a closer China-ASEAN community with a shared future. The conference is co-hosted by the CCPIT Guangxi Committee, the Qinzhou Municipal People's Government, and Guangxi Beibu Gulf Bank Co., Ltd. Guided by an enterprise-centered and trade-focused approach, the conference will feature presentations and business matchmaking across key sectors, including the digital economy, green energy, artificial intelligence, modern agriculture, and cross-border trade. The program will feature addresses by guests, an awards ceremony for the Invitational Competition on AI Application Innovation, project signing ceremonies, and promotional presentations on regional investment environments and key projects. The conference will further deepen practical cooperation between the Chinese and ASEAN business communities in international trade and industrial investment, injecting fresh momentum into building the new development paradigm and advancing regional economic integration. Business leaders and professionals from all sectors are cordially invited to gather in Nanning to share free trade dividends and seize new opportunities for cooperation. The conference will feature five key highlights:

Deepening practical business cooperation and enhancing economic and trade outcomes

With an enterprise-centered and trade-focused approach, the conference will leverage the multilateral platform strengths of CABIS and the China-ASEAN Business Council, tapping into new opportunities from institutional opening-up under CAFTA 3.0. It will continue to provide a face-to-face platform for dialogue, matchmaking, and business negotiations among Chinese and international business communities, chambers of commerce, and enterprises, focusing on key sectors such as the digital economy, green energy, artificial intelligence, modern agriculture, cross-border trade, and finance to facilitate the signing of concrete cooperation projects. This will tangibly enhance the business community's sense of gain from regional economic integration and solidify the economic and trade foundation for building a closer China-ASEAN community with a shared future.

Empowering cross-border trade with finance and facilitating capital flows

To seize the financial opening-up dividends of CAFTA 3.0, Guangxi Beibu Gulf Bank has been invited as a co-host. The event will focus on dedicated presentations and business matchmaking in areas such as ASEAN-oriented cross-border RMB settlement, supply chain finance innovation, cross-border investment and financing services, and exchange rate risk management. As the first local corporate bank in Guangxi qualified to operate digital RMB services, Guangxi Beibu Gulf Bank has achieved significant milestones in cross-border RMB clearing services and related operations. By establishing a bank-enterprise matchmaking platform, the event will foster more efficient financing and risk mitigation mechanisms between financial institutions and enterprises engaged in import-export trade and industrial investment. By channeling vital financial resources across the entire cross-border trade chain, it will help enterprises lower currency exchange costs and improve capital turnover efficiency. Furthermore, it will provide diversified and reliable financial support to deepen China-ASEAN trade ties, effectively transforming the achievements of financial opening-up into core competitive advantages for companies expanding into the ASEAN market.

Bridging industry and education to advance AI industry collaboration

The event will feature an awards ceremony for the China (Guangxi)-ASEAN College Students Invitational Competition on Digital Economy and AI Application Innovation. Launched in Malaysia in April 2026, the six-month competition was dedicated to building a collaborative platform for innovative university talent from China and ASEAN, inspiring young students to engage in hands-on practice and cooperation at the intersection of the digital economy and AI. It attracted over 200 teams from Chinese provinces, autonomous regions, municipalities, and the Taiwan region, as well as ASEAN countries including Malaysia, Thailand, Laos, Vietnam, and Cambodia. Participating projects spanned cutting-edge fields such as smart agriculture, new energy, cross-border trade, AI + industrial design, AI + e-commerce, AI + cultural communication, and AI + supply chain management. Leveraging the competition platform, the China-Malaysia Institute of Modern Craftsmanship of Digital Economy Data Annotation and Corpus Training Base was officially established in Malaysia. Focusing on multilingual data annotation centered on Malay, the base has completed over 1,900 hours of corpus annotation, providing critical data support for Chinese enterprises expanding AI applications overseas and localizing them in Southeast Asia. The "Chinese + Multilingual Data Annotation" skills training resource package project was launched, establishing an ASEAN-oriented system for multilingual AI corpus resources and practical training standards. This provides the base with foundational resources for hands-on training and digital talent development, injecting sustained momentum into China–ASEAN industry-education integration and youth exchanges in the digital economy.

Strengthening international corridors to empower regional connectivity

To seize the major opportunity of the opening of the Pinglu Canal and deeply integrate into the national strategy of the New International Land-Sea Trade Corridor, the event will help Guangxi strengthen ties with Southwest China, the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area, and ASEAN nations, fully integrating the region into the China–ASEAN economic and trade cooperation architecture. Qinzhou City will be invited to present the prospects for opening up and cooperation along the Pinglu Canal Economic Belt, highlighting new development opportunities brought by the canal. In addition, to serve the development of the Pinglu Canal Economic Belt, the event will integrate and optimize trade and economic resources among key cities, deepening cross-regional business collaboration, industrial synergy, and trade linkages to establish a long-term economic, trade, and investment cooperation mechanism among trade promotion institutions across core cities along the belt. This will facilitate cooperation agreements among the CCPIT Guangxi Committee branches of eight cities along the Pinglu Canal Economic Belt—including Qinzhou, Nanning, Fangchenggang, and Beihai—to jointly build and serve the belt, powering it to become a pivotal growth engine that connects with ASEAN and drives development across Southwest China.

Building global expansion service platforms and inter-regional cooperation networks

Dedicated to building a comprehensive cooperation platform for Chinese enterprises expanding into ASEAN, the event invites CCPIT branches and business delegations from across China to engage in exchanges and negotiations, establishing direct communication bridges and service channels for various regions to tap into the ASEAN market. Through face-to-face presentations and matchmaking discussions, the event will help enterprises accurately understand market access rules, investment policies, and industrial demands in ASEAN countries, effectively mitigating the risks of information asymmetry in their overseas expansion. Meanwhile, the event will give full play to Guangxi's role as a bridgehead to ASEAN and leverage the policy dividends of CAFTA 3.0. It will facilitate the efficient matching of competitive industrial capacity and specialty products from across China with ASEAN market demands, promote cross-border and cross-regional synergy across industrial and supply chains, and deliver comprehensive, multi-tiered support for Chinese enterprises' high-quality global expansion, thereby helping foster a new development paradigm featuring dual circulation of domestic and international markets.

Business leaders and professionals from all sectors are cordially invited to gather in Nanning to share free trade dividends and seize new opportunities for cooperation.