On December 19 to 21, the 9th Round of China-GCC Free Trade Agreement (FTA) negotiation was held in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. Wang Shouwen, Vice Chinese Minister of Commerce and Al-Bazai, General Coordinator for GCC FTA Negotiations and the Vice Minister of Finance of Saudi Arabia led delegations to attend the negotiation respectively. Delegation of GCC came from the six member states of GCC such as Saudi Arabia, Oman, United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Qatar and Kuwait and the secretariat of GCC.
During the 3-day negotiation, both sides conducted profound negotiation on the content of leftover problems such as service trade, investment, e-commerce and trade in goods, and concluded the negotiation on chapters such as the economic and technical cooperation. So far, both sides have completed nine negotiations among fifteen topics, close to reaching consensuses on the content of three chapters such as the TBT, the articles of law and e-commerce, making positive progress in the fields such as core goods and service.
Both sides agreed to hold the next round of negotiation at the end of March 2017.
