China News Service, Beijing, January 1, title: China-EU Investment Agreement, a "great gift" to the future

　　China News Agency reporter Li Xiaoyu

　　After 7 years and 35 rounds of repeated negotiations, the China-EU investment agreement negotiations have finally been completed at the end of 2020.

This is a rare gift to China, the European Union and the whole world.

　　For China, the agreement may push China's opening up to a higher level.

　　A higher level of opening to the outside world has two main meanings: one is to change from the opening of commodity and factor mobility to the institutional opening of rules, which is based on internationally accepted rules; the second is to change from passive "regulation following" opening to active "rule-making" ”-Type opening-up transformation, through deep participation in global economic governance, gradually increasing China’s right to speak in global economic governance.

In the "14th Five-Year Plan" and even in the longer-term future, the opening and reform of rules and systems are the keywords of China's opening up.

　　In this negotiation, both parties made high-level market access commitments, formulated balanced and comprehensive fair competition rules, and included the chapter on sustainable development for the first time.

Especially in terms of market access, for the first time, China has made a promise in the form of a negative list in all industries, including service and non-service industries, and fully integrated with the foreign investment negative list management system established by the Foreign Investment Law, and in accordance with its own If necessary, the opening up of certain service industries and manufacturing industries, such as hospitals and automobiles, should be expanded in an orderly manner.

　　These high-level negotiation results will undoubtedly help China create a more stable, transparent, and predictable business environment, accelerate the construction of a new higher-level open economic system, and build a new system that takes the domestic cycle as the main body and the domestic and international dual cycles promote each other. Development pattern.

　　In the EU, the agreement may bring more momentum to the EU economy.

　　China is the EU's largest trading partner and one of the EU's main investment destinations.

Both China and Europe in this agreement will further expand market opening, which will provide companies from both sides with better investment protection and massive opportunities to enter each other's markets, and more effectively achieve two-way market connectivity and the sharing of factor resources.

　　As the trade and investment ties between China and the EU in commodities, technology, services, capital, and personnel flow become closer, the EU economy will gain more momentum for development.

　　In the world, the agreement may inject certainty into the global economy amidst major changes.

　　At present, the global economy is hit by the epidemic, and various dangerous factors threatening international political and economic stability, such as unilateralism and rising protectionism, are still increasing, and economic globalization has fallen into an unprecedented low.

　　As the world’s two major economies and two important forces supporting trade and investment liberalization and facilitation, China and the EU have reached a high-level investment agreement, releasing a strong signal to jointly safeguard multilateralism and defend an open world economy based on rules. It will inject rare certainty into the global economy and help the world economy recover.

　　It is worth mentioning that 2020 marks the 45th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between China and Europe.

The completion of the negotiations as planned shows that China and the EU can reach consensus on major issues in bilateral economic and trade relations through dialogue and consultation, and enhance mutual understanding, which is conducive to the steady and healthy development of China-EU relations.

And stable China-EU relations are beneficial to both sides and the world.

　　China and the EU have overcome numerous difficulties and completed the negotiations on schedule. It also shows that despite the rumors of "anti-globalization", open cooperation and mutual benefit are still the world trend.

　　Of course, completing the negotiations is only the first step, and the final signing of the China-EU Investment Agreement will depend on subsequent work such as text review.

I believe that with the joint efforts of both parties, this "great gift" will be delivered to people as soon as possible.

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