China building its first intl undersea cable with ASEAN

China is building its first international undersea cable that will carry information and data flow between the country and the ASEAN nations.
State-owned China Unicom, one of the main telecommunications providers in the country, is cooperating with Myanmar's telecommunications operators to build the underwater cable, said Jiang Zhengxin, vice general manager of China United Telecommunications Corp, parent of China Unicom.
The cable will carry information and data flow between China and the ASEAN (Association of Southeast Asian Nations) member nations, he said, without giving further details of the project, state-run Xinhua news agency reported today.
A land cable between China and Myanmar is also under construction at a cost of USD 50 million, he added.

Jiang said this on the sidelines of the China-ASEAN Information Harbour Forum, which kicked off in Nanning, capital of south China's Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, today.
The forum focuses on cooperation between China and Southeast Asia in the Internet and technology industries.

Addressing the forum, Lu Wei, Minister of the State Council's Cyberspace Administration of China (CAC), said the country will set up a special fund for Internet and telecommunications infrastructure to link China and ASEAN members.
ASEAN members include Brunei Darussalam, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, and Vietnam.
The meeting was organised to discuss building IT infrastructure and boosting e-commerce to connect China and Southeast Asia.

China first proposed the Information Harbour initiative in September 2014.
The initiative will include five cooperative platforms to benefit China and ASEAN members, covering infrastructure, information sharing, technological innovation, trade service and cultural exchange.
The initiative, aimed to establish an information hub for the 21st Century Maritime Silk Road, a planned network of trade infrastructure mirroring the ancient Silk Road, has been supported and welcomed by ASEAN members, Lu Wei said.
According to China's plan, a base for the China-ASEAN Information Harbour will be established in Nanning City and consist of 34 projects worth 20.9 billion yuan (USD 3.3 billion).

Guangxi lies in a key area along the Belt and Road route, serving as a gateway for cooperation with Southeast Asia, Peng Qinghua, Communist Party chief of Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region said.
Guangxi reported 210 billion yuan (USD 33 billion) in e-commerce trade volume last year, up 65.9 per cent from 2013.
The volume reached 193.9 billion yuan during the first half of 2015, up 84.7 per cent from the same period last year, thanks to ever-deepening cooperation with ASEAN members, Peng said.