BOAO, Hainan, April 21 (Xinhua) - China has played a key role in intra-regional trade in the emerging Asia market, where cross-border production sharing has been on the increase, said a report released here Friday during the Boao Forum for Asia (BFA) annual meetings.

    The report, released by the Institute of BFA, a regional non-governmental organization in Asia, was the second of its kind since 2005.

    The report said the process of cross-border production sharing has boosted a triangular trade flow among the advanced Asian economies, developing Asian countries and the rest of the world.

    In the past, advanced Asian economies, including Japan and other industrialized economies, exported finished goods directly to the United States and European markets. While increasingly, these economies have shifted to exporting high value-added products, such as capital goods and sophisticated intermediate goods, to China and other less developed, low-wage countries in the region. Then these countries process them for exports destined for the United States and European markets.

    According to the report, parts and components and other intermediate products currently account for more than 45 percent of Asia's overall trade. China has emerged as a major destination for assembly, processing and other labor-intensive stages of global production networks.

    The report said over the last decade, foreign manufacturers have set up more than 300, 000 plants and factories in China, most of them involved in assembly and processing of imported components and intermediate inputs for re-export, particularly to industrialized markets.

    Statistics show that the total value of processed exports has risen rapidly, reaching 417 billion US dollars, or about 55 percent of China's total exports in 2005.

    "Trade with China, in fact, accounts for most of the growth in intra-regional trade in recent years," said the report. Export to China from the region reached nearly 30 percent of total intra-regional exports in 2004, up from 24 percent in 2000.

    However, as the report said, about 40 percent of Asian exports to China are intermediate inputs and equipment for processing and assembly for export rather than domestic use. Enditem