On December 14, China and Singapore held the third round of Chief Negotiators’ meeting on the follow-up talks of the FTA upgrade by video. The two sides comprehensively reviewed the three rounds of negotiations held since this year, positively evaluated the results achieved in the text and market access consultations, and put forward proposals for the next step to accelerate the negotiations. The two sides agreed to maintain the momentum of the negotiations, actively promote the consultations on the text, and further advance the consultations on trade in services and investment market access, with a view to completing the negotiations as early as possible so as to benefit the people and enterprises of the two countries as soon as possible.

The Protocol to Upgrade China-Singapore FTA came into effect in October 2019. In accordance with the provisions of the Upgrading Protocol, the two sides announced in December 2020 the launch of the follow-up negotiations on the upgrade, and committed to adopt the negative list approach in the services trade and investment liberalization negotiations to comprehensively enhance the level of bilateral trade and investment liberalization and facilitation.