Xiamen to issue certificate of origin to Georgia

The Xiamen Trade Promotional Association can now issue the preference certificate of origin to Georgia as the free trade agreement between the two countries has come into force, according to China's Administration of Customs.

The China-Georgia FTA contains 17 chapters, including cargo trade, service trade, rules of origin, trade remedy and technical trade barrier and involves new topics such as e-commerce.

Once the agreement takes effect, Georgia will impose no immediate tariff on 96.5 percent of products from China, while 90.9 percent of China's imports from Georgia will be immediately free from tariff and another 3 percent will be exempted from tariff within five years.

Georgia is one of the important countries along the Silk Road Economic Belt. The free trade agreement with Georgia is the first one of its kind that China has entered into after proposing the Belt and Road Initiative, and it is also the first one that China has signed with a Eurasian country.

The Certificate of Origin is not only an international trade document attesting that goods are wholly obtained, produced, manufactured or processed in a particular country, but also an important evidence for preferential tariff treatment and other preferential treatments in importing countries.

The association in Xiamen can now issue ten types of Certificate of Origin, benefiting Costa Rica, Peru, Singapore, New Zealand, Switzerland, Iceland, South Korea, Australia, and Taiwan.