Mainland And Hongkong CEPA Service Trade Agreement Formally Signed

In November 27, 2015, the Vice Minister of Commerce Wang Shouwen and the financial secretary of the Hongkong SAR government Ceng Junhua signed the CEPA agreement on trade in services between the mainland and Hongkong in Hongkong (hereinafter referred to as the agreement).

The agreement will be formally implemented in June 1, 2016.

The chief executive of the Hongkong Special Administrative Region, Liang Zhenying, deputy director of the Central Liaison Office in Hong Kong, attended and witnessed the signing ceremony.

The agreement is the first mainland territory to receive pre national treatment plus

The full liberalization of the free trade agreement in the field of service trade signifies the liberalization of trade in services in all parts of the mainland and Hongkong.

The main body of the agreement provides principles for the relationship, scope of application, bilateral obligations, national treatment, most preferential treatment, financial prudence, safeguards, exceptions, restrictive measures for reservations, cross border services, special telecommunications and cultural regulations, special procedures and information requirements, and investment facilitation, etc. in relation to CEPA.

The annex of the agreement mainly includes: first, the restrictive measures adopted by the mainland for the negative listing of Hongkong under the commercial presence mode; two, the mainland's opening measures to Hongkong in the positive list of cross-border services, telecommunications and cultural fields, as well as the restatement of the contents of the previous CEPA agreements.

Basically, the liberalization of trade in services with Hongkong is not only conducive to consolidating the central position of international finance, trade and shipping, and developing new and modern service industries, but also bringing new vitality to the development of the service industry in the mainland. It is also conducive to the comprehensive and in-depth integration of the mainland and Hongkong's economy and the realization of the common development of the two economies.

The agreement summarizes the mainland and

On the basis of the CEPA's first experience in the agreement on the liberalization of trade in services between Guangdong and Hongkong in the mainland of China (hereinafter referred to as the Guangdong agreement), the mainland has further expanded its opening up to the service sector in the mainland, with the following highlights: first, the opening up is high and the level is high.

The mainland will open up 153 service sectors to Hongkong, involving 95.6% of the 160 service sectors of the world trade organization, 62 of which will achieve national treatment and 4 more departments than the Guangdong agreement.

There are only 120 items of restrictive measures in the field of negative list, 12 less than the 132 restrictive measures in the negative list of the Guangdong agreement, and 28 of the restrictive measures further relax the entry requirements.

There are 28 new open measures in the field of cross border services, culture, telecommunications and other positive lists.

The two is to give Hongkong the most preferential treatment in the mainland. That is, any free trade agreement signed between the mainland and other countries and regions will be applied to Hongkong if there are measures better than CEPA.

The three is to further establish and improve the supporting management system that is compatible with the negative list mode. In addition to the restrictive measures retained in the agreement and the establishment and change of financial institutions in the telecommunications and cultural fields, the Hongkong service providers invest in the field of trade in services opened by the mainland in the mainland. The contract and articles of Association for the establishment and alteration of their companies are changed to record management, so as to facilitate the entry of Hongkong businessmen into the mainland market.