Research Report
Ⅰ. Background and Purpose
□ Background of this study
○ China has entered into 12 FTAs, all of which contains provisions for he liberalization of trade in services, and also concluded agreements on trade in services with several countries separately from them.
○ Those FTAs and Agreements have different provision concerning the liberalization of trade in services based on economic circumstances involving China and the other party states.
□ Purpose of this study
○ This report is designed to analyze such provisions to find some implications in preparation of Korea-China FTA
○ For this purpose, this report adopts the approach to compare and analyze the major provisions concerning liberalization of trade in services in all the FTA and agreements which China has concluded until now, in oder to find out the their respective characteristics and background. The reporter has take into particular account the prospects for the China’s position toward liberalization of services trade with Korea.
Ⅱ. Main Contents
□ This report introduced the current situations of China’s FTAs and China’s strategies for FTAs which differ from the counterpart states
○ China has put emphasis on the reestablishment of new trade rules through its FTAs network, thanks to which it can escape from the status of its non-market economy on the basis of which China obtained the membership of WTO in 2001
-China has also been deeply concerned with multilateral negotiations of services trade, such as TPP, TTIP and TISA, and has endeavored to improve domestic legislations on the various sectors of services to expand its international service trades
□ Despite the proliferation of China’s FTAs covering service trade, most of them do relatively little to open service markets
○ The FTAs that have been negotiated by China in the last 15 years frequently cover substantially more service sectors and activities, but the extent to which they result in actual reduction of barriers to trade is still limited.
-This report reviewed the provisions concerning liberalization of trade in services contained in China’s 12 FTAs and then got such results.
□ In fact, several recent China’s FTAs has gone significantly beyond the provisions of GATS
○ In aspects of their coverage, even such FTAs, however, have done little, if measured on the basis of actual liberalization of trade restrictions. And the same is true with the extent that China and its counterparts have agreed to change their regulatory policies
□ The reasons for limited progress in China’s service FTAs is the fear that the Chinese government may de deprived of the freedom of regulating trade in services
○ China’s regulatory frameworks concerning service sectors are inadequate to manage unrestricted entry and competitions
-The main reason for the slow progress in China’s negotiation of service commitments and corresponding policy reform lies in the concern about the realization of regulatory and non-economic objectives
□ For China’s negotiations of the liberalization of trade in services, the implications are that access to markets must be complemented by improved service regulations regulatory systems
○ The Liberalization of services markets need to be completed by effective regulatory standards. China wil pay attention to maintain strong capacities for identifying and making domestic regulatory reforms necessary for enhancing the efficiency of services sectors
Ⅲ. Expected Effect
□ This report show the implications concerning what would be given the highest priority on the part of China and how korea should respond to it.
○ China has adopted and implemented the policies for further strengthening its traditionally competitive labor-intensive services sectors and promoting the technology-intensive service sectors to enhance the quality of its international service trade structure as well
-China is expected not to agree to open its domestic technology-intensive service markets for a while until it has competitiveness of the relevant services
-China is expected to agree to open the service market of mode 3 (commercial presence) alone
-China is expected to demand, to some extent, work permits and residence permits to facilitate the chinese peoples’ movement into Korea.