A staff member labels selected lemons for export to Vietnam at a fruit company in southwest China's Chongqing Municipality, April 14, 2025. [Photo/Xinhua]

Trade in agricultural and food products between China and ASEAN reached 51.3 billion U.S. dollars in the first ten months of this year, up 8.9 percent year on year, according to China's General Administration of Customs (GAC) on Thursday.

The figures were announced during the 9th China-ASEAN Ministerial Meeting on Sanitary and Phytosanitary (SPS) Cooperation held in southwest China's Chongqing Municipality.

ASEAN has been China's largest trading partner for agri-food products for eight consecutive years, and has remained for many years China's top export market and second-largest import source for agri-food products, said Sun Meijun, head of the GAC at the conference.

Sun highlighted that since China established a goal in late 2021 to import 150 billion U.S. dollars' worth of high-quality agricultural products from ASEAN over the next five years, substantial progress has been made. From 2022 through October 2025, China has imported 141.2 billion U.S. dollars' worth of products, achieving 94 percent of the target.

Economic and trade relations between China and ASEAN have remained robust. Since 2022, the annual bilateral trade in goods has consistently exceeded 900 billion U.S. dollars and hit a record 982.1 billion U.S. dollars in 2024.

The growing trend is expected to continue this year, with trade volume rising 8.2 percent year on year in the first ten months.

In the face of a challenging global trade environment, trade relation between China and ASEAN has shown strong resilience. The recent signing of the China-ASEAN Free Trade Area 3.0 Upgrade Protocol, which includes enhancements to SPS measures and trade facilitation, is expected to further boost agri-food trade.