The number of students in China from member countries of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations has increased in tandem with bilateral trade.

Trade between China and ASEAN rose from $100 billion in 2004 to $400 billion last year.

The number of ASEAN students has increased by more than tenfold to about 40,000 over the same period, according to an estimate from the China-ASEAN Expo Secretariat in Nanning, capital of the Guangxi Zhuang autonomous region.