The European Commission published the market-opening annexes to the EU-China Investment Agreement (CAI) on Friday 12 March.
These documents specify the economic sectors that are not subject to the market access obligations in the agreement, such as the prohibition of special treatment by nationality, for example (Annex I). Also included are the sectors that may be subject to derogation from the obligations of the agreement (Annex II), those that may not be subject to quantitative restrictions in their opening to the market (Annex III), and finally, the restrictions and reservations on the stay of workers sent on business trips (Annex IV).
These documents make it possible to visualise precisely the sectors where China and the EU liberalise the most or the least. On the Chinese side, the press, publishing, statistics, air transport or culture are, for example, among the sectors that will remain relatively closed to European investment.
For the EU, these include education, tourism, agriculture, health or real estate.
The investment agreement with China still needs to be legally reviewed and translated before it can be submitted for ratification.
See the annexes for China: https://bit.ly/3clBvIO and for the EU: https://bit.ly/3vjkYhm (Léa Marchal)