China, ASEAN complete negotiations on free trade area 3.0

China

China, ASEAN complete negotiations on free trade area 3.0

2025-05-21 16:58 Last Updated At：23:07

China and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) have completed negotiations on their free trade area version 3.0, with the formal signing to take place before the end of the year, the Ministry of Commerce said on Wednesday.

The two sides announced the agreement at a special ASEAN Economic Ministers consultation session with China's Minister of Commerce Wang Wentao Tuesday.

The FTA 3.0 contains nine new chapters, including digital economy, green economy, supply chain interconnection, competition and consumer protection, small, medium and micro enterprises, and economic and technical cooperation.

It is conducive to promoting broader and deeper regional economic integration under the new situation, and will vigorously promote the deep integration of the production and supply chains of the two sides, the ministry said.

The upgraded version, as a priority for economic and trade cooperation between the two sides, is a landmark achievement in jointly maintaining and deepening free trade, demonstrating the strong vitality of free trade and open cooperation, according to the ministry.

It will inject greater certainty into regional and global trade, and play a leading and exemplary role for countries to adhere to openness, inclusiveness and win-win cooperation, and will effectively promote the building of a China-ASEAN community with a shared future, the ministry said.

Negotiations began in November 2022 and were concluded substantially in October 2024 after nine rounds spanning nearly two years.

The ASEAN-China Free Trade Area was first signed in 2002 and came into force on January 1, 2010.

ASEAN, made up of 10 Southeast Asian countries, is China's largest trading partner. In 2024, bilateral trade increased amounted to 6.99 trillion yuan (968 billion U.S. dollars), accounting for 15.9 percent of China's foreign trade, according to official statistics.

Air India crash report shows both engines shut down shortly after takeoff

2025-07-12 11:29 Last Updated At：11:37

Both engines of the recently crashed Air India airplane had shut down mid-air within seconds of take-off, showed a preliminary investigation report released on Saturday by the Indian Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau (ABI).

According to Indian media, the report said that before the Flight AI-171 plane crashed, the switches controlling the fuel flow of the two engines switched from "RUN" to "CUT OFF" within a second of each other, which caused the aircraft engines to stop working. The cockpit voice recorder shows that one of the pilots asked, "Why did you cut off?" and the other pilot replies, "I didn't."

The accident report also showed that both switches were moved back to the "RUN" position and while engine 1 showed signs of recovery, but engine 2 could not.

"The CCTV footage obtained from the airport showed Ram Air Turbine (RAT) getting deployed during the initial climb immediately after lift-off. No significant bird activity is observed in the vicinity of the flight path. The aircraft started to lose altitude before crossing the airport perimeter wall," the report said.

The report noted that the RAT was deployed, indicating a total loss of power and thrust in the aircraft. The report also showed that the flap settings and landing gear positions were normal at the time of the crash.

The report said that these facts will become a focus area for future investigations.

The London-bound Air India aircraft, a Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner, crashed on June 12 shortly after takeoff from the Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel International Airport in Ahmedabad, about 17 km south of Gandhinagar, the capital city of India's western state of Gujarat, killing all but one of the 242 people on board and 19 others on the ground.