On September 17, 2026, the "ASEAN-China Green Finance Innovation Partnership Dialogue and Best Practice Sharing", a sub-forum of the ASEAN-China Environmental Cooperation Forum 2026, was successfully held in Nanning City, Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region. The event was co-hosted by the China-ASEAN Environmental Cooperation Center / Foreign Environmental Cooperation Center / Technology Center for Environmental Convention Implementation of the Ministry of Ecology and Environment of China (FECO), and the Department of Ecology and Environment of Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, with joint support from the ASEAN Secretariat and the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) Beijing Office. Representatives from the Ministry of Ecology and Environment of China and its affiliated institutions, local ecology and environment departments, the ASEAN Secretariat, environmental and climate departments of ASEAN member countries, international organizations, financial institutions, and industry enterprises attended the event.

Ms. CUI Dandan, Deputy Director-General of the Department of International Cooperation of the Ministry of Ecology and Environment of China; Mr. XU Kefeng, Deputy Director-General of the Department of Ecology and Environment of Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region; and Dr. Pornsri Mingkwan, Director of the Office of the Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment of Thailand, delivered opening remarks. The meeting featured in-depth discussions around two major sessions: "ASEAN-China Green Finance Innovation Practices Sharing" and "ASEAN-China Carbon Finance Innovation Dialogue".

Ms. CUI Dandan pointed out that green finance has become the core engine driving the global green and low-carbon transition. China's 15th Five-Year Plan to Build Beautiful China and Action Plan for Carbon Dioxide Peaking clearly put forward deployment requirements to encourage establishing a project library for financial support for Beautiful China development, improving government-bank financing coordination mechanisms, enriching green financial products and services, and steadily advancing innovations in carbon financial instruments. China is willing to deepen policy exchanges with ASEAN countries in green investment and sustainable finance. Under the guidance of the Framework of ASEAN-China Environmental Cooperation Strategy and Action Plan 2026–2030, China and ASEAN countries can build an open and mutually beneficial green finance cooperation network and jointly explore more innovative regional cooperation models in green finance and carbon finance.

Mr. XU Kefeng stated that Guangxi has continued to explore the field of green finance in recent years, issuing and implementing the Implementation Plan on Delivering the "Five Major Financial Articles" of Guangxi, focusing on innovating financial products around regional characteristic industries, facilitating the translation of ecological value into economic value, and promoting international exchanges and cooperation in green and low-carbon technologies, industries, and financial resources. Guangxi is ready to work with ASEAN countries to explore the alignment of regional green standards, rules, and methodologies, strengthen project and industrial cooperation in areas such as renewable energy, circular economy, ecological restoration, and addressing climate change, and build a new model of regional green finance innovation and cooperation.

Dr. Pornsri Mingkwan noted that ASEAN has an increasingly urgent demand for investment in climate action, renewable energy, biodiversity conservation, and related fields. The key challenge lies in translating financing projects and investment opportunities into tangible implementation on the ground, making them viable and accessible for developing countries and local communities. As Co-Chair of the Green Economy Chapter negotiations for the CAFTA 3.0 upgrade, Thailand looks forward to deepening best practice sharing in green finance and advancing capacity building in innovative financing, thereby facilitating regional policy coordination and knowledge sharing, and ensuring that green funds effectively benefit local governments, communities, and micro, small, and medium-sized enterprises.

During Session I, "ASEAN-China Green Finance Innovation Practices Sharing", Ms. Carala Rosadi, Senior Research and Stakeholder Engagement Officer of the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) Indonesia Program; Ms. Heejoo Lee, Technical Advisor on Policy for Biodiversity Impact Mitigation of WCS Lao PDR; Ms. LIN Xin, Senior Manager of Green Finance Division, Department of Corporate Finance, China Guangfa Bank; Ms. YAO Ting, Deputy Dean of the Research Institute for New Power System Finance and Insurance, Dinghe Insurance; Dr. ZHU Hongxiang, Vice Chairman of Guangxi Bohuan Environmental Consulting Service Co., Ltd.; Mr. LAU Fei, Head of Sustainability Strategy, Economics & Strategic Planning Department, Bank of China Hong Kong; and the representative from FECO exchanged insights on topics including sustainable biodiversity financing, carbon-sink financial innovations, risk protection for green energy projects, the sustainable development of the pulp and paper industry, financial services empowering the transition of the real economy, and strengthening South-South knowledge transfer and green capacity extension. They had an in-depth discussion on pragmatic pathways to support the green, high-quality development of real industries by strengthening cross-regional standards harmonization, reinforcing investment risk management, and fostering precise alignment between industries and finance.

During Session II, the "ASEAN-China Carbon Finance Innovation Dialogue", Ms. Rizki Amelgia, Climate Change Policy & Resource Mobilization Senior Official, Ministry of Environment of the Republic of Indonesia; Mr. CHEN Hao, R&D Director, Macau International Carbon Emissions Exchange Co., Ltd.; Ms. GUO Esta, VP of Green Finance Governance and Strategic Engagement, HSBC China; Mr. WEN Haopeng, Green Finance Lead, Corporate Finance Headquarters, China Merchants Bank; Dr. WU Yi, Research Fellow, Alibaba-NTU Global E-Sustainability CorpLab, Nanyang Technological University; and Dr. XIA Changyou, Research Fellow, UK-China (Guangdong) CCUS Centre, engaged in a roundtable dialogue. The speakers shared policy practices and innovative case studies covering cross-regional carbon trading mechanism benchmarking, national climate finance actions, mutual recognition of voluntary emission reduction market standards, the development of transition finance and blended finance platforms, green power market and carbon financial product innovations, and AI-driven carbon disclosure alongside carbon finance infrastructure development. They reached an action consensus on further deepening cooperation between domestic and international financial institutions, promoting multilateral taxonomy alignment, and striving to build an open, trusted, and commercially sustainable regional carbon finance and climate investment and financing system.

The representatives unanimously agreed that, standing at the new starting point of the high-quality implementation of the CAFTA 3.0 upgrade, China and ASEAN should leverage regional ecological endowments and complementary industrial advantages to explore the international alignment of green and transition finance rules, carbon footprint accounting, and information disclosure standards. Both sides should innovate the supply of diversified cross-border green finance and carbon finance products and mobilize more private capital into climate-resilient and green industrial chains, thereby achieving a win-win pattern featuring socially inclusive growth and the high-quality development of the regional green economy.

As one of the sub-forums of the ASEAN-China Environmental Cooperation Forum 2026, this event aimed to implement the Framework of ASEAN-China Environmental Cooperation Strategy and Action Plan 2026–2030, share regional policy practices in green finance standards, information disclosure, risk management, and resource allocation, exchange and scale up best practices in regional green finance governance, and foster innovative exchanges in regional green finance, carbon finance, and climate investment and financing practices.