China Introduces Guidelines To Accelerate FTAs

By Samantha Tan Chiew Ting BEIJING, Dec 17 (Bernama) -- China will step up cooperation with neighbouring countries and improve the support and evaluation systems to improve its free trade areas (FTAs), Xinhua News Agency reported Thursday. By speeding up FTA talks with neighbouring countries and lifting the level of trade liberalisation in existing FTAs, China aimed to have at least the same proportion of foreign trade with its FTA partners as most developed and emerging economies do, it quoted guidelines published by the State Council. Xinhua said gradually, the FTA network would expand from neighbouring countries and countries along the Belt and Road Initiatives to most emerging economies, major developing countries, major regional economic groups, and parts of the developed world. Specifically, it said, the guidelines encouraged the opening up of the services sector, including finance, education, culture, healthcare and relaxed investment access rules in child and elderly care, architectural design, accounting and auditing, logistics and e-commerce. The guidelines also introduced support mechanisms for FTA construction, it said. It said the third-party evaluation system will be improved for decision-making and risk control while laws on foreign investment will be updated. Meanwhile, China received US$8.92 billion (US$1 = RM4.31) in non-financial outbound direct investments (ODIs) in November, up 12.6 per cent year-on-year (yoy). In the first 11 months of this year, China received US$104.13 billion in non-financial ODI investments, up 16 per cent yoy, Xinhua said, quoting the Ministry of Commerce spokesperson, Shen Danyang, as saying. For Jan-Nov period, China's investments in the Association of South-East Asian Nations and the US rose by 109.9 per cent and 55 per cent respectively, compared with the same period last year. --BERNAMA