High hopes voiced as key trade pact takes effect

Zhang said that over the years, China has carried out increased experiments with pilot free trade zones, significantly reduced negative lists for foreign investment, and continuously improved the business environment to align domestic regulations and laws to meet the partnership's requirements.

A negative list is a special administrative measure related to foreign investors' access to specific fields.

Gao Shiwang, director of the industry development department at the China Chamber of Commerce for Import and Export of Machinery and Electronic Products, suggested that as the RCEP has taken effect, the nation should strengthen efforts to open up to the rest of the world and attract more foreign investment to technology-intensive, capital-intensive and emerging sectors.

"We need to expand international cooperation, while encouraging domestic enterprises to strengthen research and development on core technologies to increase industrial resilience," Gao said.

"Chinese enterprises are expected to make good use of the RCEP and adjust their development strategies and improve management of overseas business to better cope with the dual-circulation development pattern and play a better role in the international division of labor and the global value chain," he said.