ASEAN-China Centre broadens SME training to open doors to Chinese market

The ASEAN-China Centre (ACC) is scaling up its training efforts for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), aiming to help them break into the Chinese market. The push comes as officials openly recognise that trade flows between ASEAN and China remain uneven.

Pichayapat Benjasiriroj, deputy director of the ACC's Trade and Investment Division, explained that many smaller businesses simply do not have the knowledge or the resources to work through customs regulations or take advantage of free trade agreements.

"We also recognise that trade is fairly imbalanced between ASEAN and China. That is exactly why we designed this programme to back ASEAN SMEs," he told reporters at an ACC Open Day held in Beijing on 24 September.

From Beijing to the wider region

The centre launched the initiative last year with a two-day workshop in Beijing that walked participants through customs processes, free trade agreements, cross-border e-commerce and marketing techniques.

This year the programme reached further afield, with a session in Hefei in China's Anhui province, along with debut events in Thailand and Laos intended to bring the training closer to local firms.

Pichayapat said the ACC intends to keep the programme running next year and is on the lookout for partners who can help extend its reach to SMEs across other ASEAN nations.

He stopped short of announcing any session in Cambodia and did not share figures on how many businesses had joined the training so far.

What it means for Cambodian exporters

Market access is a pressing issue for Cambodian exporters hoping to increase their sales into China. While Pichayapat's remarks hint at concrete support down the line, the ACC has not yet laid out a dedicated programme for Cambodia.

Addressing visiting ASEAN journalists, ACC secretary-general Zhang Lizhong pointed to workshops on trade and investment facilitation for SMEs as one strand of the centre's efforts to deepen economic links. He noted that the centre also arranges business delegations and trade promotion events, and hosts an ASEAN-China forum centred on emerging industries and innovation.

Cross-border business exchanges

According to Pichayapat, the forum brought Chinese firms to Malaysia in 2024 to discuss advanced industries, and to Thailand last year for a conference on renewable energy and carbon-reduction technology.

This year, the ACC accompanied roughly 50 Chinese entrepreneurs to Vietnam for meetings with local companies and a tour of the Hoa Lac High-Tech Park. The centre also takes ASEAN commercial officials and business associations to Chinese provinces to join exhibitions and investment promotion activities, he added.

Napasorn Bhuvaborirak, director of the ACC's Information and Public Relations Division, gave an overview of the centre's activities spanning trade, investment, education, culture, tourism and media.

A milestone year

The ACC was set up in 2011 by China together with the 10 ASEAN member states to foster cooperation between the two sides. Zhang noted that 2026 marks the 35th anniversary of ASEAN-China dialogue relations, the fifth anniversary of their comprehensive strategic partnership, and the ACC's own 15th anniversary.

Speaking at the Open Day, he said the centre had carried out more than 200 flagship projects and been involved in over 4,000 activities since it was founded. He put ASEAN-China trade in the first half of 2026 at $470 billion, a rise of 10.5 per cent compared with the same period a year earlier.

For smaller exporters across ASEAN, though, the ACC's training drive highlights a persistent hurdle: converting the region's expanding trade with China into opportunities they can actually seize.