January 26, 2021, Minister Wang Wentao of Commerce and New Zealand Minister of Trade and Export Growth O’Connor officially signed the Agreement between the Government of the People’s Republic of China and the Government of New Zealand on the Upgrade of the Free Trade Agreement between
Government of the People’s Republic of China and the Government of New Zealand on behalf of the two governments of the two governments by video.
Minister Wang Wentao said that President Xi Jinping pointed out in his special speech at the World Economic Forum’s “Davos Agenda” dialogue that “we should adhere to openness and tolerance, do not engage in closed exclusion” and “China will focus on promoting institutional opening up such as rules, regulations, management, standards and so on”.
The signing of the Upgrade Protocol is a concrete action for China to practice multilateralism and build an open world economy.
It is an important measure to implement the upgrading strategy of free trade areas.
The Upgrade Protocol will promote China and Singapore to further deepen practical cooperation in various fields, enhance the interests of enterprises and the well-being of the people of the two countries, and continuously enrich and enrich the connotation of the comprehensive strategic partnership between China and Singapore.
In the current critical period of global fight against the epidemic, the signing of the Upgrade Protocol also sends a positive signal to the international community that the two countries work together to meet the challenges of the epidemic and support multilateralism and free trade.
The Upgrade Protocol realizes the further improvement of quality and efficiency of China-Singapore free trade relations on the basis of the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (RCEP).
The main contents include: the market opening of some new wood and paper products in the field of goods, further optimizing trade rules such as origin rules, technical barriers to trade, customs facilitation, etc.
In the field of service trade, on the basis of RCEP, China further expands the opening to the new party in aviation, education, finance, pension, passenger transport and other fields.
In the work permit arrangement for characteristic types of work, the new party doubled the quota for Chinese teachers and Chinese tour guides who applied for new employment with large numbers of Chinese citizens to 300 and 200 respectively.
In the field of investment, the new party relaxes the threshold for Chinese investment review and confirms that Chinese investment is given the same review threshold treatment as the members of the Comprehensive and Progressive Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (CPTPP).
In the field of rules, the two sides pledged to strengthen cooperation in the fields of electronic commerce, competition policy, government procurement, environment and trade.
Among them, the environment and trade chapter goes beyond RCEP, and has reached a higher level of cooperation terms on improving the level of environmental protection, strengthening environmental enforcement, and implementing multilateral environmental conventions.
After the signing of the Upgrade Protocol, the two sides will implement relevant domestic procedures as soon as possible so that the China-New Zealand Free Trade Area Upgrade Agreement can enter into force and implement it as soon as possible.
The China-Singapore Free Trade Agreement was signed in April 2008 and implemented on October 1 of the same year.
In November 2016, the two sides launched negotiations on upgrading the free trade agreement.
In November 2019, the two sides announced the completion of the upgrade negotiations.
