Adjustment of Customs Tariff in 2009—China Government Encouraged Foreign Trade C

In 2009, China will further adopt more preferential conventional tariff and concessionary rate than the most favored nation tariff to promote trade cooperation with foreign countries and regions for mutual benefits and development.

China maintained the China-ASEAN free trade conventional tariffs on some commodities manufactured in ten countries of ASEAN and took the third turn of normal tax reduction. After tax reduction, there are about 6750 tax items adopting the conventional tariff, with the average preferential margin of about 80% compared with the most favored nation tariff. The second is to continue the China-Chile free trade conventional tariff on some products manufactured in Chile and conduct the fourth overall tax reduction; the third is to continue the China-Pakistan free trade conventional tariff on some products manufactured in Pakistan and conduct the third overall tax reduction. After tax reduction, there are about 6191 tax items with the conventional tariff lower than the corresponding most favored nation tariff, with the average preferential margin of about 37%. The fourth is to continue the China-New Zealand free trade conventional tariff on some products manufactured in New Zealand and conduct the second overall tax reduction. After tax reduction, there are about 6989 tax items adopting the conventional tariff, with the average preferential margin of over 40%. The fifth is to continue the "Asia Pacific Trade Agreement" conventional tariff on 1751 products manufactured in Korea, India, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and Laos, with the applicable rate for some tax items further reduced and the average preferential margin of about 23%. The sixth is to continue zero duty on the products manufactured in Hong Kong and Macao. According to existing origin standard establishment conditions, there will be 1539 products and 681 products with zero duties separately for Hong Kong and Macau form January 1, 2009. The seventh is that China will firstly conduct tax reduction on some products manufactured in Singapore form January 1, 2009 in accordance with the China-Singapore free trade convention. Compared with the China-ASEAN free trade convention (Singapore is also a member of ASEAN), we have 708 items with more rapid tax reduction speed for Singapore, and the rest tax items have the same tax reduction extent with that in the China-ASEAN free trade convention. After tax reduction, there are 2739 tax items adopting the China-Singapore free trade conventional tariff, with the average preferential margin of about 75%.