China keeps close ties with six members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) in the trade of agricultural products, with both import and export of the products accounting for more than 90 percent of the total with the whole of the ASEAN, industry sources said here on Sunday.

The six countries are Malaysia, Indonesia, the Philippines, Vietnam, Thailand and Singapore. The ten-member ASEAN also groups Brunei, Myanmar, Cambodia and Laos.

Last year, Malaysia and Indonesia became the sixth and eighth largest purchasers of Chinese agricultural products, buying 845 million and 613 million U.S. dollars, respectively, from China, said the sources with the organizing committee of the China-ASEAN Expo that opened here on Sunday in the southern China city of Nanning.

The Philippines, Thailand, Vietnam and Singapore were all among the first 15 bigger buyers of Chinese farm produce, spending 459 million, 364 million, 351 million and 319 million U.S. dollars last year, respectively.

The combined value of the six countries' agricultural imports from China accounted for 90 percent of the total of the ten ASEAN members put together.

Meanwhile, Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia and Vietnam, listed within the first 20 on the list of China's biggest farm produce exporters, sold 1.72 billion, 1.29 billion, 1.25 billion and 362 million U.S. dollars worth of agricultural products to China in 2006.

The value combined accounted for 95 percent of the total China imported from the ten ASEAN countries.

According to sources with the Chinese Ministry of Commerce, China mainly buys palm oil, wood and wood products, dried cassava and tropical fruits from ASEAN countries.