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Trade and Industry Department The Government of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region
Brand Hong Kong - Asia world city

Mainland and Hong Kong Closer Economic Partnership Arrangement (CEPA)

Telecommunications Services

Liberalisation Measures under CEPA

The Agreement on Trade in Services covers and consolidates commitments relating to liberalisation of trade in services provided in CEPA and its Supplements and also the Agreement between the Mainland and Hong Kong on Achieving Basic Liberalisation of Trade in Services in Guangdong.

Agreement on Trade in Services
Liberalisation Measures under Cross-border Services (Positive List)
Sectors or sub-sectors
  • 2. Communications services
    • C. Telecommunications services
  1. Voice telephone services
  2. Packet-switched data transmission services
  3. Circuit-switched data transmission services
  4. Telex services
  5. Telegraph services
  6. Facsimile services
  7. Private leased circuit services
  8. Electronic mail services
  9. Voice mail services
  10. On-line information and data base retrieval services
  11. Electronic data interchange (EDI) services
  12. Enhanced/value-added facsimile services, including store and forward, store and retrieve
  13. Code and protocol conversion services
  14. On-line information and/or data processing (including transaction processing)
  15. Other (paging, teleconference, transoceanic mobile communications, air-to-ground communications, etc.)
Specific commitments
  1. To allow Hong Kong service suppliers to distribute in the Mainland fixed/mobile telephone service cards which can only be used in Hong Kong (excluding mobile satellite phone service cards)
  2. To allow contractual service providers employed by Hong Kong service suppliers, in the mode of movement of natural persons, to provide the following telecommunications services in the Mainland:
    1) Online data processing and transaction processing (confined to e-commerce business websites only);
    2) Call centre services;
    3) Internet access services
Reserved Restrictive Measures under Commercial Presence (Negative List)
Sector 2. Communication Services1
Sub-sectors
    • C. Telecommunications services
  1. Voice telephone services
  2. Packet-switched data transmission services
  3. Circuit-switched data transmission services
  4. Telex services
  5. Telegraph services
  6. Facsimile services
  7. Private leased circuit services
  8. Electronic mail services
  9. Voice mail services
  10. On-line information and data base retrieval services
  11. Electronic data interchange (EDI) services
  12. Enhanced/value-added facsimile services, including store and forward, store and retrieve
  13. Code and protocol conversion services
  14. On-line information and/or data processing (including transaction processing)
  15. Other (paging, teleconference, transoceanic mobile communications, air-to-ground communications, etc.)
Obligations concerned: National Treatment
Reserved Restrictive
Measures:
Commercial Presence
  1. ​For engaging in basic telecommunications services, Hong Kong service suppliers shall set up joint venture enterprises in the Mainland, and the Mainland parties shall be the controlling shareholder.
  2. For the provision of the following services by Hong Kong service suppliers, the proportion of Hong Kong capital in the shareholding shall not exceed 50%:
    1) Online data processing and transaction processing services (except operating e-commerce business websites);
    2) Mainland IP based Virtual Private Network services; 
    3) Internet data centre services;
    4) Internet access services (except for providing Internet access services to end users);
    5) Content services (except application stores);
    6) Content delivery network services;
    7) Code and protocol conversion services.
1 Classification for this sector is based on the Mainland classification for telecommunications sector.