The second China-ASEAN Expo will beheld in October in Nanning, capital of southwest China's Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, the Expo secretariat said Wednesday.

After consulting with each of the ten ASEAN members, the Chinese Ministry of Commerce decided to advance the date to Oct. 19-22 to avoid overlapping with the Festival of Fast-Breaking, which falls on Nov. 3 this year.

The first China-ASEAN Expo was jointly hosted by the two sides on Nov. 3-6 last year, also in Nanning.

According to the secretariat, the second Expo will have about 3,500 international standard stalls, 1,000 more stalls than the first. It will be held in the Nanning International Exhibition Center, scheduled to be completed in June. The center is designed to hold 15 inside showrooms, covering an area of 50,000 square meters.

China and the ASEAN are preparing to built free trade area (FTA)in 2010, which will be the world's third largest FTA, following the European Union and the North American Free Trade Agreement. Itwill cover 1.7-billion people and have a 2-trillion-US-dollars gross domestic product and a 1.2- trillion-US-dollars trade volume.