China News Service, Beijing, January 26 (Reporter Li Xiaoyu) China and New Zealand signed the protocol for upgrading the two countries' free trade agreement by video on the 26th. The free trade relationship between China and New Zealand is further developed on the basis of the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (RCEP). Improve quality and efficiency.
According to the agreement, in terms of trade, China will further expand the opening of aviation, education, finance, pension, passenger transport and other fields to New Zealand on the basis of RCEP.
New Zealand has doubled the quota for new employment of Chinese teachers and Chinese tour guides, who have applied for a large number of Chinese citizens, to 300 and 200 respectively.
The two parties also agreed to carry out follow-up negotiations on trade in services in the form of a negative list within two years after the upgrade protocol took effect to further increase the level of openness.
Prior to this, New Zealand has imposed zero tariffs on 100% of imports from China, and China has imposed zero tariffs on 97% of imports from New Zealand.
After this upgrade, China will also impose zero tariffs on some timber and paper products imported from New Zealand.
In terms of investment, New Zealand confirmed that it will grant Chinese investors the same review threshold treatment as members of the Comprehensive and Progressive Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP).
If the investment of Chinese government investors in New Zealand does not exceed S$100 million and the investment of non-government investors does not exceed S$200 million, they will not need to be reviewed, which is significantly wider than the previous New Zealand investment review threshold of S$10 million in China. .
In the area of regulations, the two parties promised to strengthen cooperation in the fields of e-commerce, competition policy, government procurement, environment and trade. Among them, the chapter on environment and trade goes beyond RCEP and reached a high level on improving environmental protection, strengthening environmental law enforcement, and fulfilling multilateral environmental conventions Horizontal terms of cooperation.
The Ministry of Commerce stated that in the next step, both parties will perform relevant domestic procedures as soon as possible so that the China-New Zealand Free Trade Area Upgrade Agreement will take effect as soon as possible.
The China-Singapore Free Trade Agreement was signed in April 2008 and was implemented on October 1 of the same year.
In November 2016, the two parties launched negotiations on upgrading the free trade agreement.
In November 2019, the two parties announced the completion of the upgrade negotiations.
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