The Chinese central government is touting the signing of free trade agreements with more than a dozen countries as part of its Belt and Road Initiative that seeks to span the Eurasian continent.
China has signed a total of seven free trade agreements with 13 nations under the Belt and Road Initiative, said Ministry of Commerce official Guo Tingting (郭婷婷) at an official press conference held on 22 July.
Guo said that in April China officially submitted its letter of approval for the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) to the ASEAN secretariat, becoming one of the first countries to complete approval procedures alongside Japan and Singapore.
According to Guo China will endeavour to drive the implementation of RCEP prior to 1 January 2022, while MOFCOM has already held two national online training sessions to help local governments and enterprises in China to make effective use of the agreement.
The training sessions saw the participation of over 66,000 people, over 70% of whom were enterprise representatives.
