The annual Boao Forum for Asia has just kicked off in southern China's Hainan Province. It has released its Asian Economic Outlook and Integration Progress Annual Report. The flagship report, which was released today, projects the Asian economy to grow by 4.5 percent in 2025.  Chen Tong reports.

This is the most crowded news conference at every year's Boao Forum for Asia — the release of two flagship reports. The most important one on the Asian economic outlook predicts Asian GDP to grow by 4.5 percent in 2025, accounting for 36.4 percent of the global total. Two driving factors come from the digital economy and service trade — retail e-commerce grew 8.4 % in the Asia Pacific region in 2024. And travel-related business has also seen an obvious recovery. All these figures are quite outstanding compared with global GDP growth of 3.2 percent in 2024, but experts are calling for further integration.

ZHANG YUYAN, Director of Institute of World Economics and Politics, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences "We have mechanisms like RCEP, Asia Economic Forum, ASEAN and cooperation between China, Japan and South Korea, but we could explore more. For example, the utilization of regional free trade agreements can be improved."

CHEN TONG, Boao, Hainan Province "This 160-page report on economic outlook is released every year at the Boao Forum for Asia. The highlights of the report are signaling that Asia is playing a more critical role in the global stage amid economic uncertainties and trade frictions."

Another report on sustainable development was also released, calling for further integration of carbon markets, nature-based solutions and green technologies.