The Fifth Meeting of the Joint Commission of China-ASEAN Free Trade Area (FTA) was held in Chengdu, Sichuan on March 11-13. Delegations from China and the 10 ASEAN countries attended the meeting. The Chinese delegation was composed of the Ministry of Commerce, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, the Ministry of Finance, the Ministry of Agriculture, the General Administration of Customs, General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine, and the Department of Commerce of Yunnan.

The meeting focused on the implementation of China-ASEAN Summit and discussing preparations to start to upgrade China-ASEAN FTA negotiations, and reviewed the implementation of relevant trade agreements, and started negotiations on rules of origin, economic cooperation, customs procedures and trade facilitation, sanitary and phytosanitary measures and standards, technical regulations as well as assessment procedures.

On October 2013, Premier Li Keqiang called on in China-ASEAN Summit to upgrade the China-ASEAN FTA as soon as possible so as to establish a more comprehensive and higher standard free trade agreement.