China-Africa First Free Trade Agreement Offers New Opportunity for China-Africa Economic and Trade Cooperation

Release time:

2019-10-25

China and Mauritius formally signed a free trade agreement on the 17th, which is the first free trade agreement between China and an African country. This agreement will provide a strong institutional guarantee for deepening China-Mao economic and trade relations, inject new connotations into the China-Africa comprehensive strategic cooperative partnership, and provide new opportunities for China-Africa economic and trade cooperation.

Since the establishment of diplomatic relations between China and Mauritius, the friendly and cooperative relations between the two countries have developed smoothly, and economic and technological cooperation and economic and trade exchanges have continued to develop. China is the second largest trading partner and the largest source of imports of Mauritius. In 2018, the bilateral trade volume between the two countries reached 0.842 billion billion US dollars, an increase of 7.29 percent over the previous year.

The China-Mauritius FTA negotiations were officially launched in December 2017 and concluded on September 2, 2018. The agreement covers trade in goods, trade in services, investment and economic cooperation. In the field of trade in goods, the proportion of product tax items that China and Mauritius eventually achieved zero tariffs reached 96.3 per cent and 94.2 per cent, respectively; in the field of trade in services, both sides promised to open more than 100 sub-sectors. This is the highest level of openness in the services sector in Mauritius to date.

Dr. Huang Yupei of the China-Africa International Business School of Zhejiang Normal University believes that the signing of the China-Mauritius Free Trade Agreement will help Mauritius achieve economic take-off. The agreement is also conducive to further strengthening the "Belt and Road" initiative and the African Union's "Agenda 2063", and promoting China and Mauritius to form a "community of destiny" for common development and prosperity and a "community of interests" for mutual benefit and win-win results ".

Sun Hong, an assistant researcher at the Institute of African Studies of the China Institute of Modern International Relations, said that after the launch of the free trade zone on the African continent, many countries are stepping up the signing of relevant trade agreements with African countries, hoping to catch the express train of the construction of the free trade zone. The signing of the China-Mao Free Trade Agreement is at the right time, accumulating experience for China to sign free trade agreements with other African countries.

In July 2019, the 12th African Union Special Summit on the African Continental Free Trade Area officially announced the establishment of the African Continental Free Trade Area. At present, the construction of a free trade zone on the African continent is accelerating, and it is expected to eventually form a large market covering the 1.2 billion population and a total GDP of US $2.5 trillion. The China-Africa FTA will help further promote regional integration in Africa.

Economic and trade cooperation between China and Africa is deepening and has broad prospects. Since the Beijing Summit of the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation was held in September 2018, China-Africa economic and trade cooperation has developed in an all-round, multi-level and wide-ranging manner, and has achieved a series of results. China has become Africa's largest trading partner for ten consecutive years. In 2018, China-Africa trade volume reached 204.2 billion billion U.S. dollars, an increase of 20% over the previous year.

(Source: Xinhua)

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