On March 25-31, 2021, the first round of follow-up negotiations on China-Singapore FTA upgrade was held through video conference. The two sides held in-depth negotiations on the rules of cross-border trade in services, investment, telecommunications and other areas, and exchanged views on issues related to negotiations on trade in services and investment liberalization, and made much progress on the negotiations.

The China-Singapore Free Trade Agreement was signed in October 2008 and implemented on January 1, 2009. In November 2018, the two sides signed the Upgrade Protocol of China-Singapore FTA, which was implemented in October 2019. According to the Upgrade Protocol of China-Singapore FTA, China and Singapore announced in December 2020 that they would start follow-up negotiations on upgrading, negotiate service trade and investment liberalization with the negative list approach, so as to further enhance bilateral trade and investment liberalization and facilitation.