YANGON, Sept. 1 (Xinhua) -- Myanmar's sepak takraw players are training hard in a bid to win at least three gold medals in next year's Southeast Asian (SEA) Games on home soil, according to the country's sepak takraw federation.

A total of 36 players, 22 men and 14 women, have been in training camp since March this year, the Myanmar sepak takraw federation said.

Myanmar won one gold, one silver and two bronze medals in sepak takraw at the 26th SEA Games. Thailand and Malaysia are Myanmar's main competitors in the sport.

The 27th SEA Games will be hosted in Nay Pyi Taw, Yangon, Mandalay and Ngwesaung Beach from Dec. 11 to 22, 2013. About 5,000 athletes from 11 countries, namely Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, Timor Leste, Vietnam and host Myanmar are expected to take part.

BEIJING, Sept. 1 (Xinhua) -- Premier Wen Jiabao will attend the opening ceremony of the second China-Euroasia Expo to be held Sunday in Urumqi, capital of northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region, Foreign Ministry spokesman Qin Gang said Saturday.

The second China-Euroasia Expo is slated to be held from Sunday to Friday in Urumqi.

At the invitation of the expo's organizing committee of, President of Kyrgystan Almazbek Atambayev, President of the Maldives Mohammed Waheed Hassan, Prime Minister of Cambodia Hun Sen, Prime Minister of Kazakhstan Karim Massimov, Prime Minister of Tajikistan Akil Akilov, Second Vice President of Afghanistan Mohammad Khalili and Deputy Prime Minister of Turkey Ali Babacan will attend the expo, according to a press release from the Foreign Ministry.

SIEM REAP, Cambodia, Aug. 31 (Xinhua) -- ASEAN economic ministers agreed on Friday to deepen the bloc's integration efforts towards realizing an ASEAN Economic Community by 2015, officials said.

Speaking in a press briefing on Friday evening after the week- long 44th ASEAN Economic Ministers Meeting and related meetings, Cambodian Minister of Commerce Cham Prasidh said the meetings were wrapped up successfully and the ministers agreed to "deepen ASEAN integration" in order to achieve an ASEAN economic community in 2015.

He said that on its way to an ASEAN Economic Community in 2015, the bloc is still facing a number of challenges or local sensitivity that needs to be addressed.

"But we believe that with sound political input, some more political wills to be expressed by the leaders, those hesitations would be erased and would be less and less challenges for us to achieve the goal," said the minister, also the chair of 2012 ASEAN.

Surin Pitsuwan, ASEAN secretary-general, said that ASEAN has done well in terms of soft infrastructure such as agreements, protocols, and various elements of cooperation and coordination among member states.

"So far, ASEAN has ratified about 72 to 73 percent of all the major instruments of cooperation among ASEAN," he told the press briefing. "Our remaining challenges are how to implement every of those instruments, and how to translate the regional ASEAN commitments into the national agenda implementation, rules, laws and regulations."

He expressed his confidence that ASEAN will be able to achieve an ASEAN Economic Community on schedule thanks to ASEAN's joint commitment and help from dialogue partners.

Indonesia's Trade Minister Gita Wijrawan said on the sidelines of the meeting on Tuesday that a joint commitment will make ASEAN be able to overcome those challenges.

"The scorecard has revealed a good percentage of the items ASEAN has fulfilled and completed towards the community building, but there is still a lot of work to be done," he said, adding that ASEAN needs to basically engage with private sectors and put more focus on connectivity.

After the week-long meetings, the economic ministers expressed their satisfaction with ASEAN's economic growth of 4.7 percent last year despite the heightened uncertainties in the global economy, according to a joint media statement on Friday.

They said that the positive but moderate economic growth was underpinned by resilient domestic demand, strong macroeconomic fundamentals, sound balance sheets of banks and the corporate sector, and on-going structural reforms since 1997.

"We are confident that our economic expansion would remain healthy this year, with projected GDP growth of between 5.2 percent and 5.9 percent," the ministers said in the statement.

The ministers were also pleased to note that ASEAN's merchandise trade grew at 16.8 percent from 2.05 trillion U.S. dollars in 2010 to 2.39 trillion U.S. dollars in 2011 despite the slowdown global trade, with intra-ASEAN trade remained strong at 598 billion U.S. dollars.

They said Japan was the top export destination, followed by China, the European Union, and the United States.

At the same time, export and import in services grew by about 10 percent in 2011. Travel, transportation, other business services, and financial services continue to be the top services export sectors.

They were also pleased that ASEAN maintained its position as one of the most attractive destinations for foreign direct investment (FDI), which reached 89.2 billion U.S. dollars in 2011.

The European Union remained the top source of FDI to ASEAN, accounting for approximately 25 percent of total inward FDI to ASEAN.

Japan and the United States were the second and third largest source of FDI, altogether accounting for 22.5 percent in total.

Intra-ASEAN investment grew at 23 percent in 2011, reaching 17. 5 billion U.S. dollars which accounted for 19.7 percent of total inward FDI into ASEAN.

In addition, they agreed to remain vigilant against downside risks such as further contraction of external demand caused by the sovereign debt crisis in the Eurozone, fiscal problems in some developed economies, tighter global financing conditions, higher oil prices, and volatile global capital flows.

Founded in 1967, ASEAN (Association of Southeast Asian Nations) groups Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam.

SIEM REAP, Cambodia, Aug. 31 (Xinhua) -- U.S. Trade Representative Ron Kirk announced Friday that the United States and Cambodia have agreed to begin exploratory discussions on a potential bilateral investment treaty, according to a press release from the U.S. Embassy in Phnom Penh.

The announcement followed a meeting here between Kirk and Cambodian Commerce Minister Cham Prasidh, the chair of the 44th ASEAN Economic Ministers Meeting and related meetings, which were opened on Monday and lasted until Friday.

"Experts in the United States and Cambodia will now discuss our respective investment policies and investment agreements to determine key similarities and differences, with an eye to sharing approaches and opening further discussions based on the U.S. model text for bilateral investment treaties," said the press release.

"A bilateral investment treaty between the United States and Cambodia would encourage investment by improving investment climates, promoting market-based economic reforms, and strengthening the rule of law," Kirk said. "Our decision to explore this possibility highlights progress made by Cambodia in fostering a policy environment that treats private investment in an open, transparent, and non-discriminatory way."

A bilateral investment treaty provides binding legal rules regarding one country's treatment of investors from another country.

SIEM REAP, Cambodia, Aug. 31 (Xinhua) -- The first consultations between the ten ASEAN Economic Ministers and their Canadian counterpart were concluded here on Friday, adopting the ASEAN-Canada trade and investment work plan 2012-2015 to promote bilateral economic ties, according to a joint statement.

The meeting was co-chaired by Cambodia's Minister of Commerce Cham Prasidh, the chair of ASEAN in 2012, and Canada's Minister of International Trade Ed Fast.

The statement said that the ministers tasked senior economic officials to develop and implement the activities under the work plan with the aim of enhancing economic cooperation as well as promoting trade and investment between ASEAN and Canada.

"The work plan will set the stage for deepened economic ties through a forward looking agenda," it said.

The ministers also welcomed the establishment of the Canada- ASEAN Business Council, which will serve as the channel for business-to-business dialogue to raise awareness of trade and investment opportunities in ASEAN and Canada.

They expressed confidence that the council could also eventually serve as the channel for future government-to-business engagement aimed at seeking private-sector inputs on further enhancing ASEAN-Canada economic relations, it said.

According to the statement, the bilateral trade between ASEAN and Canada grew by 10 percent last year.

Canada became the seventh largest source of foreign direct investment in ASEAN with investment from Canada to ASEAN reaching 900 million U.S. dollars last year.