The agreement is also promoting closer links between industrial and supply chains across the region, creating more opportunities for companies on both sides, she said.

　　CAFTA 3.0, which was signed in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, in October 2025, marks the latest stage in the evolution of the China-ASEAN Free Trade Area. CAFTA was launched in 2002 and fully implemented in 2010. The upgraded CAFTA 2.0 protocol was signed in 2015, and it took full effect in 2019.

　　Data from the General Administration of Customs shows that the value of China-ASEAN trade reached 5.95 trillion yuan ($886 billion) in the first eight months of 2026, up 20.6 percent year-on-year.

　　Ruijie Networks Co, a manufacturer of switches, routers and network security equipment for data centers based in Fuzhou, Fujian province, saw its exports to ASEAN markets surge 93 percent year-on-year to reach 1.44 billion yuan between January and August.

　　Wang Chenyan, director of external relations at Fujian Star-net Communication Co, the parent company of Ruijie Networks, said that demand for networking equipment has grown rapidly in Southeast Asia, particularly in Singapore, Malaysia and Indonesia, amid rising investment in digital infrastructure and data centers.

　　According to Fuzhou Customs, the value of Fujian-ASEAN trade reached 159.14 billion yuan in the first seven months of this year, up 4.9 percent year-on-year.

　　Futaihua Precision Industry (Weihai) Co, a manufacturer of printers and related equipment based in Weihai, Shandong province, imported over 300 million yuan worth of industrial components from Southeast Asian countries, including Cambodia and Malaysia, during the January-August period, a year-on-year increase of 320 percent.