Service Trade Agreement with Mainland effective today
Macau Business Daily | 31 May 2016
Service Trade Agreement with Mainland effective today
The Service Trade Agreement under the Closer Economic Partnership Arrangement (CEPA) between Mainland China and Macau comes into effect on June 1, liberalising 153 service sectors from the SAR in China, according to a Financial Services Bureau (DSF) dispatch. The agreement, signed in November of last year, is the first free trade agreement opening up the local service sector to the Mainland, opening up 62 new sectors to the city’s service providers, such as veterinary services, passenger transportation, supporting services for the road transport network and services to the sports sector, as reported by Business Daily.
The agreement includes benefits and an improved registry mechanism, removing 12 of the 132 restrictive measures from the Guangdong Agreement, and allowing easier access to 28 service market sectors, with the communications, cultural and border services sectors seeing 20 more liberalisation measures. Besides more favourable trade requirements, the agreement also states that any free trade agreement signed between Mainland China and other countries and regions will be extended to Macau territory if the respective agreement measures are better than the signed CEPA agreement, the DSF dispatch announced.
