BEIJING: China is ramping up efforts to promote free trade cooperation by accelerating talks and upgrades of free trade agreements (FTAs) and enhancing the development of its free trade zones (FTZs), the Ministry of Commerce (MOFCOM) said at a press conference on Friday. The acceleration of free trade cooperation sends a strong signal of China’s high-level opening-up. In the face of a complex and challenging external environment, the move is crucial for China to stabilize foreign trade in the second half of the year and ensure that it meets its annual economic growth target, experts said.
This also shows China’s commitment to supporting multilateralism, maintaining the stability and efficiency of global industrial and supply chains, and providing confidence and certainty to the world economy, they added.
MOFCOM announced at the press conference that it is advancing FTAs with various partners and will strive to increase the proportion of trade volume with FTA partners to around 40 percent of its total foreign trade volume by 2030.
MOFCOM said efforts are being made to accelerate the ASEAN-China FTA 3.0 Upgrade Negotiations and FTA talks with countries such as Honduras, El Salvador and New Zealand. It is also promoting the China-Japan-South Korea FTA as well as free trade cooperation with the Gulf Cooperation Council, Norway, Switzerland and Bangladesh.
In the new FTAs to be signed, China will further enhance the level of opening-up in commodity trade, include more products in the zero-tariff list and push for further opening-up in key sectors such as telecommunications, healthcare, and tourism, MOFCOM said.
It is also mulling a comprehensive document to enhance the development of FTZs, and will leverage pilot FTZs to further expand China’s opening-up of commodity, service, and capital markets to the world.
MOFCOM’s move comes as the current global trade environment is marked by rising uncertainties and trade restrictions, causing a negative impact on global trade.
In order to increase the quality and quantity of foreign trade throughout the year, MOFCOM is utilizing bilateral mechanisms to assist enterprises in addressing unreasonable trade restrictions, support more companies in expanding their international presence and establish a stable and predictable trade policy environment.
MOFCOM will also focus on fostering new growth in foreign trade, improve overall competitiveness and deepen cooperation with trading partners to uphold the stability and efficiency of global industrial and supply chains, it added.
FTAs play a crucial role in stabilizing foreign trade and ensuring China’s overall economic growth target for the year, especially in this complex and challenging external environment, experts said. –The Daily Mail-Global Times news exchange item
