China will further promote the cooperation of China and ASEAN (the Association of South East Asian Nations) police agencies to combat transnational crime and bring more benefits to the peoples of all countries, a Chinese senior official said on Tuesday.

Zhang Xinfeng, vice minister of Chinese Ministry of Public Security, told Xinhua that the ministry attaches great importance to the cooperation mechanisms between the ASEAN and dialogue partners including China in the area of combating transnational crime.

Zhang made the speech to Xinhua at the opening ceremony of the 30th ASEANAPOL Conference held in Phnom Penh from Tuesday to Friday.

"It is the sixth time that China participated in the ASEANAPOL conference," said Zhang, adding that "each time we use this platform to exchange information with our counterparts in ASEAN countries, discuss ways of cooperation in this area, and we have continuously achieved significant results in fighting against all kinds of transnational criminal activities."

Zhang Xinfeng said, "In recent years, China-ASEAN have developed good police relations, the two sides have a pragmatic and sincere cooperation, including the working-level exchanges among the leadership. We are satisfied with the cooperation."

He said the main purpose of this session is to continue to promote police cooperation of the ASEAN and other partners in the areas of intelligence and information exchange.

"Through this meeting, we will further promote the cooperation between Chinese police and the ASEAN countries in the fields of transnational crime, such as preventing and combating terrorism, weapon smuggling, human trafficking, financial crimes, cybercrime, travel document forging, and bring more benefits to the people of all countries," he added.

Nearly 300 high-ranking police officers from the ten ASEAN member countries and the dialogue partner countries including China, Japan, South Korea, Australia, New Zealand and the representatives of the ASEANAPOL Secretariat and Interpol attended the four-day conference.

Over the next two days, they will discuss issues like terrorism, drug and weapon trafficking, maritime fraud and cybercrime.

They will also update each other on developments on transnational crime and discuss how ASEANAPOL can increase relations with Interpol.

"The annual ASEANAPOL is a good opportunity for us to review the previous year cooperation and to exchange ideas and experience and discuss any measures to strengthen and broaden cooperation and mutual assistance in order to enable all ASEAN forces to have similar capacity, technical and material basis in fighting against transnational crime so as to ensure happiness in the region and the world," Cambodia's Police General Neth Savoeun said at his welcome speech.

ASEAN Chiefs of Police Conference began in 1981 with the aim of strengthening the ASEAN member police organization and the exchange of information between agencies and law enforcement cooperation.