China and ASEAN countries are close neighbours linked by mountains, rivers, and seas. Since the establishment of dialogue partnership in 1991 and strategic partnership in 2003, the two sides have stepped up efforts to consolidate political and strategic mutual trust, deepen trade and economic cooperation, enhance connectivity and strengthen people-to-people exchanges, and have achieved fruitful results spanning across a wide array of areas.
Building upon this partnership, in 1997, the Government of the People’s Republic of China launched the ASEAN-China Cooperation Fund (ACCF) with the aim to fund activities in promoting cooperation between ASEAN and China in areas such as agriculture, ICT, HRD, mutual investment, Mekong River Basin Development, trade, tourism, transport linkage, education, science and technology, and environment, including but not limited to conducting of seminars, personnel training, and exchange of visits and other functional areas.
Over the past decades, ACCF has funded hundreds of activities and programs between ASEAN and China and has been playing a significant role in enhancing functional cooperation between China and ASEAN in various fields.