The Secretary for Economy and Finance, Mr Tam Pak Yuen, and the Vice Minister of Commerce, Ms Gao Yan, today signed a supplement to an economic agreement to further enhance trade exchanges between Macao and the Mainland. Mr Tam and Ms Gao signed Supplement X to the Closer Economic Partnership Agreement (CEPA) at the Government Headquarters after officials from Macao and the Mainland met at the 2013 CEPA Joint Steering Committee high-level meeting. The signing ceremony was attended by the Chief Executive, Mr Chui Sai On; Deputy Director of the Liaison Office of the Central People's Government in the Macao SAR, Ms Qiu Hong; the Acting Commissioner of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the PRC in the Macao SAR, Mr Feng Tie; Inspector of Hong Kong and Macao Affairs Office of the State Council, Mr Huang Guang, and the Director-General of the Macao Customs, Mr Choi Lai Hang. Similar to the nine previous supplements, Supplement X would further relieve restrictions and facilitate trade in services between Macao and the Mainland in a wide range of areas such as legal, financial, health, tourism, sports and social services sectors. Highlights of the supplement included expanding the scope of privileged policies for Macao companies and individuals to provide services in varied sectors in Guangdong Province, and abolishing some restrictions in investing in transport industry in Fujian Province. One of the initiatives in Supplement X is to enable individuals with Macao identification documents to work temporarily in the Mainland for Macao services providers that are not commercially registered in the Mainland. These individuals, under the role of contracted services providers, could work temporarily in 26 services areas, including construction, information technology, real estate, convention and exhibition, translation and interpretation, tourism, sports, and transportation. In terms of trade and investment facilitation, Macao and the Mainland would continue to strengthen co-operation in commodity inspection, quality specification and protection of intellectual property rights. Supplement X to CEPA will come into force on 1 January 2014. Speaking to the press after the signing ceremony, the Secretary for Economy and Finance, Mr Tam Pak Yuen, said the targets of CEPA, which was signed a decade ago, had been met and the agreement should be seen as a success. He re-iterated that basically all products made in Macao entering the Mainland now enjoyed zero tariff treatment.
