August 2, 2024

China is ramping up efforts to promote free trade cooperation by accelerating talks and upgrades of free trade agreements (FTAs) and enhancing the development of its free trade zones (FTZs), the Ministry of Commerce (MOFCOM) said at a press conference on Friday. The acceleration of free trade cooperation sends a strong signal of China's high-level opening-up. In the face of a complex and challenging external environment, the move is crucial for China to stabilize foreign trade in the second half of the year and ensure that it meets its annual economic growth target, experts said.

This also shows China's commitment to supporting multilateralism, maintaining the stability and efficiency of global industrial and supply chains, and providing confidence and certainty to the world economy, they added.

MOFCOM announced at the press conference that it is advancing FTAs with various partners and will strive to increase the proportion of trade volume with FTA partners to around 40 percent of its total foreign trade volume by 2030.

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