By now, the RMB settlement for cross-border transactions has been carried out in 144 countries. The total accumulated volume for transaction settlement carried out by all China's banks reached 360.3 billion yuan in the first quarter of this year, marking an exponential growth. With such growth, the demands for such relevant capital services as trade financing with RMB, RMB cash management and cross-border investment and financing also increased rapidly. It's estimated that the total size of RMB settlement for cross-border transactions will have stood at 6 trillion yuan by 2015.
ASEAN is regarded as the first stop for RMB to be internationalized while Guangxi is the frontier for China-ASEAN cooperation. During the period from June 2010 when Guangxi was selected as the pilot for RMB settlement for cross-border transaction to the end of June 2011, the accumulated volume in Guangxi is over 29 billion yuan. In particular, the RMB settlement volume for exported goods registered 21.6 billion yuan, ranking first in the whole China and taking up 27% of the total volume in China.
33 foreign banks and 18 foreign enterprises have opened 65 accounts for RMB settlement. Guangxi has established with many foreign countries including Vietnam, Cambodia and Malaysia the correspondent relationship for RMB settlement in cross-border transactions that involve letter of credits, collecting, telegraphic transfer and letter of guarantee.
ASEAN countries have become major outbound tourist destinations for Chinese people. Vietnam, Singapore, Thailand and Malaysia are among the top 10 outbound tourist destinations. Over the past years, the annual growth rate of Chinese tourists visiting Singapore, Malaysia, Vietnam, the Philippines and Brunei has been over 15%. In the meantime, the number of ASEAN tourists coming to Guangxi has risen rapidly annually. Vietnam and Malaysia have ranked first and second respectively in terms of the international tourist source for Guangxi. The number of tourist from the PBG area to Guangxi accounted for 40% of the total inbound tourists to Guangxi. In 2010, Guangxi reaped a total tourist revenue of 95.3 billion yuan, increased by 36% and taking up over 10% of its GDP.
China has become the first largest trading partner and the second largest export market for ASEAN while ASEAN is the 3rd largest trading partner of China. The bilateral investment between China and ASEAN has been growing. By the end of June this year, the accumulated investment has hit US$ 80 billion. China's direct investment in ASEAN is about US$ 13 billion accumulatively, nearly half of which has been made in the past 2 years. ASEAN has become the important destination for Chinese enterprises to go global.
The first half of this year saw the throughput of all harbors in Guangxi Beibu Gulf Economic Zone grow by 31.18% compared with the same period of last year, which was the first in China for the first time in terms of the growth rate. In the coming 5 years, 2375 projects will be carried out in the zone, for which 2.5 trillion yuan will be invested to accelerate the development of industry, harbor, logistics, transportation and other infrastructure. 6 industrial parks with the respective output value over 100 billion yuan will be built before 2015.