BEIJING, Oct. 22 (Xinhua) -- China and Mauritius in September sealed a package of agreements on negotiation agenda for China-Mauritius Free Trade Agreement (FTA), which represents the success of the first FTA between China and African countries.
Over the years to come, as for goods trade, China and Mauritius will offer each other zero-tariff treatment on over 90 percent of taxable items, covering over 90 percent of their trade volume . As to tourism, Mauritius-bound Chinese tourists will enjoy more facilitation. Meanwhile, China's investors can set up hotels, restaurants and other businesses in Mauritius and Mauritius' investors also can establish travel agencies in China.
The signing of China-Mauritius FTA is another tribute to China's efforts in broadening opening-up and integrating itself deeper into the world economy.
So far, China has signed 17 FTAs with 25 countries and regions and established a circle of friends for FTA covering Europe, Asia, Oceania, South America and Africa. In 2017, the trade and investment between China and its FTA partners accounted for 25 percent, 51 percent and 67 percent of China's foreign goods trade, service trade and two-way investment, respectively.
In November 2005, Chile had the lead on other Latin American countries in signing FTA with China; in April 2008, New Zealand kept one step ahead of other developed countries in signing FTA with China, which also marks China's first comprehensive FTA covering multiple fronts including goods trade, service trade and investment; on January 1, 2010; China–ASEAN Free Trade Area was completed as scheduled, marking the completion of the largest free trade area between China and other countries and regions.
Over the past forty years of reform and opening-up, China's foreign trade has experienced a constant scale-up and restructuring and made a record-breaking leap-forward. From 1978 to 2017, the number of China's trade partners jumped to 231 countries and regions from over 40; the total volume of China's foreign trade rose to 27.8 trillion yuan from 35.5 billion yuan, an increase of 782 folds; China has shaped well as the largest trade partner of over 120 countries and regions; China has put a cumulative amount of foreign direct investment of over 2 trillion U.S. dollars into actual use.
FTA has increased the trade volume of China and relevant countries and regions by a wide margin. In 2017, China-Chile bilateral trade volume reached 35.395 billion U.S. dollars, five times that of 2005 before China-Chile FTA. Under the propulsion of FTA, China-ASEAN bilateral trade volume rocketed to a record figure of 514.82 billion US dollars in 2017 from 292.8 billion U.S. dollars in 2010. FTA has smoothed the way for imports like Australia's lobsters, Southeast Asia's fruits, Chile's wine and South Korea's electronics to China and also helped quality-assured made-in-China exports find their way to all over the world.
Both economic globalization and trade liberalization are the overall trends of global economic development. Under the global context, advancing the construction of free trade areas in relevant countries tops China's agenda to broaden opening-up and facilitate an open world economy.
To that end, the 18th CPC National Congress brought up the plan to accelerate implementation of strategies for free trade areas and the Third Plenary Session of the CPC 18th Central Committee proposed the formation of a high standard global network of free trade areas with basis on surrounding countries and regions. And the 19th CPC National Congress further put forward to expand foreign trade, cultivate new trade formats and models and set China on course for a trade power. In line with the master plan of China's central government, China has picked up pace in building free trade areas with an even broader presence.
At present, negotiation or escalation negotiation work for 12 FTAs between China and 27 other countries is well underway. These agreements include the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership, the second-stage negotiation for China-Japan-South Korea, China-Norway, China-Sri Lanka, China-Israel, China-South Korea and China-Pakistan FTAs and the escalation negotiation for China-Singapore and China-New Zealand FTA. (Edited by Yang Qi, kateqiyang@xinhua.org; source: People’s Daily)
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