On December 14, China and Singapore held the third meeting of chief negotiators for the follow-up negotiations on the upgrading of the free trade agreement by video. The two sides comprehensively reviewed the three rounds of negotiations held since this year, positively evaluated the results achieved in the text and market access negotiations, and put forward suggestions for accelerating the negotiations in the next step. The two sides agreed to maintain the momentum of negotiations, actively promote the text consultation, further promote the consultation on service trade and investment market access, and strive to complete the negotiations as soon as possible, so as to benefit the people and enterprises of the two countries as soon as possible. The upgrading protocol of China Singapore Free Trade Agreement will be implemented in October 2019. According to the provisions of the upgrade protocol, the two sides announced the launch of the follow-up negotiations on the upgrade in December 2020, committed to conducting negotiations on the liberalization of trade in services and investment by means of negative list, and comprehensively improving the level of bilateral trade and investment liberalization and facilitation.
(Ministry of Commerce)
