On June 26, Minister of Commerce Gao Hucheng met with Gunnar Sveinsson, Iceland’s Minister of Foreign Affairs and Foreign Trade, and his party in Beijing, and they announced that China-Iceland Free Trade Agreement will officially go into effect on July 1, 2014.

The agreement is the first of its kind signed between China and European countries, which covers fields of trade in goods, trade in service and investment. It will inject huge vitality to the long-term development of China-Iceland relations and play an exemplary role in deepening China-Europe economic and trade cooperation.

The agreement’s coming into effect demonstrates the joint efforts of the two parties and indicates a milestone in the development of bilateral relations. The agreement will bolster the two countries’ economy and employment and broaden their cooperation in energy, food and shipbuilding.

Upon the establishment of China-Iceland free trade area, nearly 96% of products are subject to zero tariffs in terms of tariff number, and nearly100% in terms of trade volume. The agreement comprises 12 chapters, namely preface, general rules, trade in goods (including tariff concession, trade remedies, sanitary and phytosanitary measures, and technical trade barrier), rules of origin, customs procedure, competition policy, intellectual property, trade in service, investment, cooperation, mechanism clause, dispute resolution, final clause, as well as nine appendixes including the movement of natural persons.