MACAO — An agreement was signed on Dec 12 between the Chinese mainland and China’s Macao Special Administrative Region (SAR) on trade in goods under the framework of the Closer Economic Partnership Arrangement (CEPA), symbolizing the completion of comprehensively upgrading the CEPA.

The agreement was signed by China’s Vice Commerce Minister Fu Ziying and the Secretary for Economy and Finance of the Macao SAR government Leong Vai Tac.

The signing of the agreement would promote the integration of the Macao SAR into the national development, and help the Macao SAR’s business sectors explore the market in the Chinese mainland, Leong Vai Tac told reporters after the signing of the agreement.

The agreement includes the general rules uniformly applicable to all products of the tariff code and the specific rules of origin for certain products, and defines origin criteria for more than 8,000 tariff code products.

In addition, it also includes a chapter on trade facilitation measures in the Greater Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Bay Area.

The agreement comes into effect on Jan 1, 2019.