Photo taken on Dec. 17, 2009 shows the Yao Autonomous County of Hekou (R) of southwest China's Yunnan Province and Lao Cai Province (L) of Vietnam. Yunnan Province, with the borderline of 4640 km, has 20 ports connecting with Vietnam, Laos and Myanmar.

Photo taken on Dec. 18, 2009 shows a Vietnamese store in Hekou of southwest China's Yunnan Province. (Xinhua/Qin Qing)

Photo taken on July 4, 2009 shows people choose goods in a jade market in Ruili City of southwest China's Yunnan Province, which borders Myanmar. (Xinhua/Lin Yiguang)

Photo taken on Dec. 18, 2009 shows a Vietnamese store in Hekou of southwest China's Yunnan Province. (Xinhua/Qin Qing)

NANNING, Jan. 1 (Xinhua) -- China and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) kicked off the world's largest free trade area (FTA) embracing developing countries Friday as businessmen and trucks loaded with vegetables and fruits thronged border markets.

Dozens of trucks, mostly carrying dragon fruit from Vietnam, were waiting to be unloaded Friday morning at the Tianyuan Fruit Trade Market, one of China's largest market for fruit import, at the Pingxiang Port in Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region.

"The establishment of the free trade area is really good news for me," said Liu Yuzhen, who has been trading fruits for 16 years.

She now sells more than 10 tonnes of apples, pears, oranges and other fruits to southeast Asia every day, and hopes her business will expand as the FTA will facilitate the customs clearance and reduce the logistics cost.

The China-ASEAN FTA covers a population of 1 billion and involves about 450 million U.S. dollars of trade volume.

The average tariff on goods from the ASEAN countries is cut down to 0.1 percent from 9.8 percent. The six original ASEAN members, Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore and Thailand, will slash the average tariff on Chinese goods from 12.8 percent to 0.6 percent.

By 2015, the policy of zero-tariff rate for 90 percent of traded goods is expected to extend between China and four new ASEAN members, Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar and Vietnam.

Vice Commerce Minister Gao Hucheng said earlier the establishment of the FTA will promote the regional economic integration, benefiting companies and consumers.