The 16th China-ASEAN Expo and the China-ASEAN Business and Investment Summit will be held from September 21 to 24 in Nanning, south China's Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region.

The Expo venue is set to be 10,000 square meters bigger than last year to accommodate the 2,848 participating companies, 131 of which come from 20 Belt and Road countries.

A batch of new Chinese products, technologies and applications will be unveiled at the Expo, such as 5G applications, big data applications in finance, iris recognition technology, and a new generation of genetic sequencing equipment for crops, Gao Feng, spokesperson for China's Ministry of Commerce said in a news conference on Friday.

The theme of this year's event is "Building Belt and Road Routes, Realizing Our Vision for Community of Shared Future."

2019 marks the 16th anniversary of China-ASEAN Strategic Partnership.

Chinese vice premier Han Zheng will attend the opening ceremony of the annual event.

Initiated in 2004, the expo is an important platform to promote trade and relations between China and ASEAN.

The total volume of trade between China and the ASEAN countries hit a record high of 587.87 billion U.S. dollars in 2018, up 14.1 percent year on year.