Over the past decade, China has been striving to build the remote Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region into an international transportation hub that can support the increasingly frequent exchanges between China and the ASEAN.
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China and the ASEAN established a strategic partnership in 2003, and the two sides have witnessed their bilateral trade volume increase fivefold and the scale of two-way investment expand threefold since then.
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Serving as a gateway to the ASEAN, Guangxi has played an important role in improving transportation connecting the two sides and boosting bilateral trade and exchanges.
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Early in 2005, an expressway linking Nanning, capital city of Guangxi, and Friendship Pass, a pass bordering Vietnam, was put into use, marking the first highway that connects China and the ASEAN countries.