On October 29, the 14th ASEAN-China Maritime Consultation Mechanism Meeting officially opened in Guangzhou, gathering over 110 participants, including directors or their representatives from maritime authorities of ASEAN countries, officials from the ASEAN Secretariat, and members of the direct maritime system. Fu Xuyin, Deputy Minister of Transport of the People’s republic of China, attended the opening ceremony and delivered a speech. Xu Wei, Secretary of the Party Committee and Deputy Director of Maritime Safety Administration of the People’s Republic of China and Abdul Rahman, Director of the Maritime and Ports Bureau of Brunei, the current ASEAN Chair  co-chaired the meeting.

Fu Xuyin emphasized that ASEAN and China  have continually deepened their cooperation in the transportation sector under the Belt and Road Initiative. As an important part of ASEAN-China transportation cooperation, the maritime field was significantly contributing to regional connectivity and sustainable transportation development. Since 2005, through the China-ASEAN Maritime Consultation Mechanism Meeting, ASEAN countries and China have engaged in regular consultations to learn each other, forged a consensus and achieved fruitful cooperation outcomes, which setting an example of regional win-win cooperation and common development for global maritime transportation. He expressed his hope that both sides would strengthen the connection of rules and standards and elevate the level of regional maritime cooperation, promote emerging technological innovations and broaden the scope of regional maritime cooperation, advance green and safe shipping  and lead the development of regional maritime cooperation  under the new trend of "digital, intelligent and green" .

The meeting conducted in-depth discussions on topics such as cooperation on transportation safety, maritime digital development, ship pollution prevention and decarbonization and emission reduction, port state control cooperation, maritime capacity building, new maritime industries, technologies and their challenges. Simultaneously, a series of technical cooperation and capacity-building activities were held, including transportation safety, the maritime service from “Single Window” and maritime labor convention. The scale of this meeting was the largest ever. These activities will provide a platform for ASEAN countries and China to jointly and deeply engage in global maritime governance, further enhance in-depth friendly dialogue and cooperative mutual trust in the maritime field between ASEAN countries and China and deepen cooperative consensus between the two sides in jointly promoting the digitalization, intelligence and green transformation of the shipping industry.

The ASEAN-China Maritime Consultation Mechanism Meeting is a maritime cooperation mechanism platform under the framework of the ASEAN-China Transport Ministers' Meeting, aiming to strengthen exchanges, consultations and cooperation between  ASEAN maritime authorities and China, promote relevant maritime transportation technology cooperation projects and technical standards proposed by China to gain support, participation and promotion from ASEAN countries. Two sides could jointly enhance regional navigation safety and marine environmental protection and actively serve the development and prosperity of the shipping economy.