On October 23rd, witnessed by Premier Wen Jiabao and his Singaporean counterpart Lee Hsien Loong, the Sino-Singaporean Free Trade Agreement between the Governments of the People’s Republic of China and the Republic of Singapore was signed by Chinese Minister of Commerce Chen Deming and Minister Lim Hng Kiang of Singapore’s Ministry of Trade and Industry respectively representing their own government at the Great Hall of the People. In addition, the Memorandum of Understanding on the Human Resources Cooperation between the governments of the People’s Republic of China and the Republic of Singapore was also signed between the two sides.

The China-Singaporean negotiation on free trade zone started in August 2006, and through 8 rounds of arduous but sincere talks, the two sides successfully completed the negotiation in September 2008. Covering commodity trade, trade in services, personnel flowing, customs procedures, etc., the Agreement is a comprehensive free trade agreement. Based on China-ASEAN Free Trade Zone, the two sides have further accelerated the time course of trade liberalization, and extended the depth and width of the bilateral free trade relations and trade and economic cooperation. According to the Agreement, Singapore pledges to rescind the tariff on all its imported goods from China from January 1, 2009; and China pledges to realize zero tariff policy on 97.1% of its imported goods from Singapore before January 1, 2012. Besides, the two sides have made commitments higher than those to WTO in the fields of trade in services such as medical care, education, accounting, etc.

The signing of the Agreement is a new milestone in the course of development of China-Singaporean bilateral relations, which shall further advance the development of China-Singaporean bilateral trade and economic relations in an all-round way, and exert positive influence upon the course of East Asian Economic Integration. Meanwhile, as all the nations across the globe are coping with the financial turbulence, the signing of the Agreement is conducive to maintaining the two nations’ trade and economic stability and growth, and shall make active contributions to maintaining the world economic stability and promoting trade liberalization.