The ninth Pan-Beibu Gulf (PBG) Economic Cooperation Forum opened Thursday in Nanning, capital of south China's Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region.

More than 400 representatives from governments, international organizations, and businesses from China and ASEAN, as well as France, Japan and Israel gathered to discuss regional cooperation.

The forum will hold two parallel summits under the themes of China-Indochina Peninsular Economic Corridor Development, and network construction of port cities in China and ASEAN in the afternoon session.

Initiated in 2006, PBG Economic Cooperation has become a sub-regional collaboration system under the China-ASEAN framework. The PBG Economic Zone covers the Chinese provinces of Guangxi, Guangdong and Hainan, as well as neighboring ASEAN countries near the gulf across the sea such as Vietnam, Malaysia, Singapore, the Philippines, Indonesia, Brunei and Thailand.