Asian Countries: China and Dollars

asian countries: By the end of 2015, China direct investment in South Asian countries stood at 12.29 billion US dollars, and South Asia investment in China was 890 million US dollars, according to data from the Ministry of Commerce . Last year, trade grew 4.9 percent from the previous year to 111.22 billion dollars between China and eight members under the South Asia Association for Regional Cooperation initiative -- including Nepal, India, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Maldives and Afghanistan -- according to the MOC. China inked contracts worth 21.28 billion US dollars with south Asian countries in 2015 mainly for power plants, communication and road projects, up 82.1 percent from the previous year, according to Global Times China. Chen Lijun, director of the Institute for South Asian Studies at the Yunnan Academy of Social Sciences, said China, and southeast and south Asian countries are now at different stages of development and there are a lot of ways in which they can complement each other. Home to nearly half of the global population, China and south Asia stood out amid the gloomy global economy each boasting an enviable growth rate of 6.9 percent last year. They must tap into each other comparative advantages to realize mutual beneficial opportunities and common prosperity, Chen said. China will establish free trade areas with those countries and increase imports from them, Wang said, adding that the country will support domestic companies to conduct production cooperation in South Asia to aid industrialization. Vice Premier Wang Yang said during the fourth China-South Asia Expo in June in Kunming, capital of southwest China Yunnan Province, that China was willing to enhance cooperation with countries in South Asia in the fields of customs, quality inspection, e-commerce and transportation. (news.financializer.com). As reported in the news.