MACAO - The Chinese central government and the government of the Macao Special Administrative Region (SAR) signed a supplement to an economic agreement on Friday to further enhance trade exchanges between Macao and the Chinese mainland.

The Supplement X to the Mainland and Macao Closer Economic Partnership Arrangement (CEPA), representing the 10th expansion since 2004, was signed by Vice Minister of Commerce Gao Yan and Secretary for Economy and Finance of Macao SAR, Tam Pak Yuen, at the SAR's Government Headquarter.

The new supplement, which will become effective in January 1 next year, would further relieve restrictions and facilitate trade in services between Macao and the Chinese mainland in a wide range of areas such as legal, financial, health, tourism, sports and social services sectors.

According to the agreement, the mainland will expand the scope of privileged policies for Macao companies and individuals to provide services in varied sectors in Guangdong Province, and abolish some restrictions in investing in transport industry in Fujian Province.

One of the initiatives in Supplement X is to enable individuals with Macao identification documents to work temporarily in the mainland for Macao services providers that are not commercially registered in the mainland.

These individuals, under the role of contracted services providers, could work temporarily in 26 services areas, including construction, information technology, real estate, convention and exhibition, translation and interpretation, tourism, sports, and transportation.

In terms of trade and investment facilitation, Macao and the mainland would continue to strengthen co-operation in commodity inspection, quality specification and protection of intellectual property rights.

Since the CEPA between Macao and the mainland came into effect in 2004, the mainland has progressively expanded its contents by respectively signing nine supplements in the following years.

Secretary for Economy and Finance of Macao SAR Tam Pak Yuen said the targets of CEPA, which was signed a decade ago, had been met and the agreement should be seen as a success. He re-iterated that basically all products made in Macao entering the mainland now enjoyed zero tariff treatment.