With the signing of a supplementary agreement of the mainland/Macao Closer Economic Partnership Arrangement (CEPA), the Chinese mainland will further open its services and trade sectors to Macao, a senior official with the Ministry of Commerce said Thursday.

Vice Minister of Commerce Liao Xiaoqi and Tam Pak Yuen, secretary for economy and finance of the Macao Special Administrative Region (MSAR), signed the third supplementary agreement of the mainland/Macao Closer Economic Partnership Arrangement (CEPA) on Monday, said the official attending a Forum on Economic and Trade Cooperation and Development Between the Mainland, Hong Kong and Macao which was held here Thursday.

According to the supplementary agreement to be in operation as of January 1, 2007, the Chinese mainland will take 13 new measures for further opening to Macao in such sectors as law, construction, exhibition, audio-visual, distribution, tourism, transportation and self-employed business. The measures include relaxation of share-holding restrictions, lowering threshold like registration capital and other conditions for registration, and widening business scope and area, and relaxing the conditions for natural person flow.

In the sphere of trade and investment facilitation, the two sides have decided to include cooperation in convention and exhibition business in their original cooperation range. The two sides have also decided to list the cooperation in the intellectual property protection in the CEPA framework.

Since its signing some three years ago, CEPA has been implemented smoothly and generated fruitful results, said the official.

The official said the Chinese mainland has pledged to further implement the measures it committed in CEPA in the future and raise the level of cooperation between the two sides and push forward the prosperity of both the mainland and Macao.

The Chinese mainland and Macao signed the CEPA in October 2003.

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