Yibada | 19 Dec 2014

Mainland China, Macao sign deal to promote free trade

By Jed Santos

China’s mainland and the Macao Special Administrative Region (SAR) signed a deal on Dec. 18, Thursday, to solidify a free trade agreement between their regions.

The deal was signed under the framework of the Mainland and Macao Closer Economic Partnership Arrangement (CEPA), which was implemented on Oct. 18, 2003.

With Vice Commerce Minister Gao Yan and Secretary for Economy and Finance of the Macao SAR Tam Pak Yuen inking the pact, service sectors will continue to enjoy preferential access to both Macao and mainland China’s products.

Thursday’s agreement was the first one made the the mainland government in the form of pre-establishment national treatment and a negative list.

Gao said at the signing ceremony that, with the mutual agreement signed, authorities must fully implement the rules and achieve the basic liberalization of service trade between the two regions.

"I hope the service industry could fully utilize the CEPA policy and grasp the opportunity of the liberalization of trade service between Guangdong province and the Macao SAR to further promote the economic integration between the mainland and Macao," Gao said.

Under the deal, 153 service trade sub-sectors from the mainland-or 95.6 percent of all service sub-sectors in Guangdong-will be opened up to Macao’s service industry. In turn, 58 service trade sub-sectors in Macao will be subject to national treatment.