Off the wire
• Coastal express railway opens in NE China  • Netflix, Paris terror attacks among Australia's most searched terms for 2015  • 1st LD-Writethru: China's outbound direct investment up 12.6 pct  • 4th Ld Writethru-China Headlines: New satellite to shed light on invisible dark matter  • New Zealand food safe, says regulator after man pleads guilty of poison threat  • Macao SAR ready to administer maritime zone effectively  • Protests swell across Brazil in support of President Rousseff  • Economic growth, unemployment both heading up in New Zealand  • Obama signs temporary funding bill to avert government shutdown  • Tokyo shares skyrocket by break on U.S. rate hike  
You are here: 　 Home

China introduces guidelines on accelerating FTAs

Xinhua, December 17, 2015 Adjust font size:

To improve its free trade areas (FTAs) China will step up cooperation with neighboring countries and improve the support and evaluation systems, according to guidelines published by the State Council on Thursday.

By speeding up FTA negotiations with neighboring countries and lifting the level of trade liberalization in existing FTAs, China aims to have at least the same proportion of foreign trade with its FTAs partners as most developed and emerging economies do, the document said.

Gradually, the FTA network will expand from neighboring countries and countries along the Belt and Road initiative to most emerging economies, major developing countries, major regional economic groups, and parts of the developed world.

Specifically, the guidelines encourage the opening up of the service sector including finance, education, culture, and health care, and relaxes investment access rules in child and elderly care, architectural design, accounting and auditing, logistics, and e-commerce.

The guidelines also introduce support mechanisms for FTA construction. The third-party evaluation system will be improved for decision-making and risk control while laws on foreign investment will be updated. Endi