China is building 14 FTA zones with 31 countries and regions on five continents

Xinhua Beijing, December 29, China-ASEAN FTA will be launched on Friday (January 1, 2010) full.　　At present, China is working with 31 countries and regions on five continents to build 14 free-trade zones and to sign an FTA eight, of which seven have been implemented, covering One-fourth of China's total foreign trade in 2008. Chen Deming, China's commerce minister, recently said that the urgency of accelerating the construction of the FTA has become more acute in the context of the intensification of trade protectionism and the difficult multilateral negotiation process.　　Chen Deming exaggerated, to actively layout the global self-trade network, to promote the existing FTA negotiation process, accelerate the feasibility study of the FTA, such as China, Japan and South Korea, to create conditions for timely commencement of negotiations.　　As the first free trade area established in China, China-ASEAN FTA has an important demonstration and milestone significance in establishing the FTA in China's foreign cooperation. Ningning, Deputy Secretary-General of China-ASEAN Business Council, pointed out that China-ASEAN FTA is the first FTA in China's participation in regional trade arrangements, and has stepped out of the earliest and most important step.　　In the past decade, with the construction of the FTA, the rapid development of economic and trade cooperation between China and ASEAN has promoted the political, social and cultural cooperation between the two sides and promoted the process of economic integration in East Asia. Jianguo, dean of the China Ministry of Commerce's International trade and economic Cooperation, recently pointed out that since the full implementation of the FTA, the goods trade involving about 7,000 tax number products will be zero tariff, accounting for about 90% of China's trade with ASEAN, trade agreements on services and investment agreements will also start.　　He said that this is a major event in China's regional trade cooperation and will have a significant impact on China's and ASEAN's economic and trade development. Jianguo also said that China-ASEAN FTA has a broad development prospects. China and ASEAN have many common historical and cultural backgrounds, ethnic differences are small, common language is more, in the current world economic competition format in the same emerging economies, with urgent development requirements, latent economic growth capacity is enormous. In the current situation, to strengthen regional cooperation and promote regional economic integration is a common need, in line with the current trend of regional trade development.