The China-ASEAN Commodity Trading Innovation and Development Forum on Monday helped broker five commodity deals totaling 29.7 billion yuan (about 4.1 billion U.S. dollars).

The procurement deals cover commodities including petroleum, palm oil, coal, and ores, organizers said. The forum was held on Monday in Nanning, capital of south China's Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region.

Guangxi has booming trade exchanges with the ASEAN countries. In recent years, the China (Guangxi) Pilot Free Trade Zone has accelerated the construction of a commodity trading platform. From January to July, the free trade zone imported 12.79 million tonnes of commodities, a year-on-year increase of 81.2 percent.↳

The forum also launched the Beibu Gulf (Guangxi) mercantile exchange interactive spot-futures trading platform to help build Qinzhou into a commodity trading hub to mainly serve the ASEAN countries.

More than 200 people from China and ASEAN countries, including commodity trade authorities, business associations, research institutions, representatives of commodity trading platforms and producers and traders, attended the forum.