China had attracted US$52 billion of investment over the past 30 years from the member states of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), said an official with the China-ASEAN Business Council Wednesday.

As of the end of 2008, the bilateral investment reached US$60 billion, of which the ASEAN investment in China was US$52 billion, taking six percent of world's total investment in China, the official said.

The top five investors in China were Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand and the Philippines in 2008, of which Singapore had become the world's third largest investor in China, the official said.

The bilateral investment is obviously unbalanced, reasons are that ASEAN countries eye China as a huge market while Chinese companies lack experience in ASEAN, and that they already have China as a huge market, the official said.

Statistics from the China customs show that the trade volume between China and ASEAN reached US$231 billion in 2008, with an annual increase rate of 21.6 percent since 2004.

(Xinhua News Agency October 22, 2009)