People sit next to a pond outside the Marina Bay Shoppes shopping center in Singapore. (Photo: Agencies)
Hanoi (VNA) - China's Minister of Commerce Wang Wentao and Singapore'sMinister for Trade and Industry Gan Kim Yong have signed a Memorandum ofUnderstanding, announcing the substantive conclusion of negotiationson an upgraded bilateral free trade agreement (FTA), Xinhua news agencyreported.
Theupgraded FTA, which will boost market access for businesses from bothcountries, adds a new standalone chapter on telecommunications, andincorporates high-level economic and trade rules on national treatment, marketaccess, transparency and the digital economy, among others, Chinese Ministry ofCommerce said in a statement.
Thetwo sides also confirmed that there will be no rollback of opening-up measuresin the service trade and investment sectors, and promised to each other thatthe respective doors of opening up will only be wider.
The ministry also said that it will strongly push China-Singapore economic and tradecooperation to a new level.
Chinaand Singapore signed the FTA in 2008 and upgraded it in 2018. In December 2020,the two sides upgraded the agreement again and launched subsequent negotiationsto further liberalise service trade and investment based on a negative-listmodel.
The above-mentioned announcement was made in the context that Chinaand Singapore on April 1 issued a joint statement on the establishment of ahigh-quality future-oriented comprehensive partnership on the occasion of anofficial visit to China of Singapore Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong./.
