China’s commerce minister Wang Wentao and his counterpart in the Maldives, Mohamed Saeed, announced in a video meeting on December 30, 2024 that the China-Maldives Free Trade Zone Treaty would take effect as of January 1, 2025.
The free trade zone treaty between the two countries was signed on December 7, 2017 following five rounds official negotiations and one ministerial-level discussion since December 2015. The treaty benefits an array of Chinese agricultural exports and industrial exports, such as ships, electric power equipment and furniture, and most aquatic products from the Maldives.
The two countries pledged to further open their service sectors to each other and give each other’s investors post-entry national treatment and most-favored-nation treatment.
China’s Ministry of Commerce said that in 2023, bilateral trade between China and the Maldives reached US$760 million, 75.8 percent more than in 2022.
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