This CEPS book comprises a first-ever economic and regulatory analysis of a possible Free Trade Area (FTA) between China and the EU, whose design is supposed to be 'deep and comprehensive'. It provides an overview of the global economic environment in which EU-Chinese economic relations have developed in recent years, including global value chains linking the two economies. The substance of the FTA design is then elaborated in nine, largely empirical and technical chapters ranging from tariff analysis (at the 6- and 8-digit level) and technical barriers to trade, to services, government procurement and investment. A third part comprises a CGE-model-based empirical simulation of the economic effects on GDP per member state (and on China), bilateral trade in goods and services, wages for workers with three distinct skill-levels and a series of goods and services sectors.

The year-long study was led by Jacques Pelkmans of CEPS, and the research was carried out by a team of trade specialists at CEPS in partnership with another team of researchers led by Prof. Joseph Francois of the World Trade Institute (WTI) in Bern.

Jacques Pelkmans is Senior Fellow at CEPS (www.ceps.eu) in Brussels and visiting professor at the College of Europe in Bruges. Between 2001 and August 2012, he was Jan Tinbergen Chair and Director of the Economics Department at the College. A Ph.D. in economics from Tilburg University, he has been associate professor of economics at the European University Institute in Florence, professor of economics at the European Institute of Public Administration (Maastricht) and professor for European Economic Integration at Maastricht University. He was a Council member at the WRR (think-tank of the Dutch Prime minister) 2001-07.

Joseph Francois is Managing Director and professor of economics at the World Trade Institute. He also serves as deputy director of the NCCR Trade Regulation. Previously he was professor of economics (with a chair in economic theory) at the Johannes Kepler Universität Linz. He is a fellow of the Centre for Economic Policy Research (London), director of the European Trade Study Group and the Institute for International and Development Economics, senior research fellow with the Vienna Institute for International Economic Studies, and a board member of the Global Trade Analysis Project. He serves on the editorial board of the Review of Development Economics, and the World Trade Review.

Executive Summary / Introduction /Part I: The Global and Bilateral Context / 1. Why an EU-China free trade area? / 2. China and the EU in a rapidly changing world economy / 3. Bilateral economic relations: Trade and investments / 4. Global value chains: Significance for the EU and China /Part II:Design and Substance of an EU-China FTA / 5.What would an EU-China FTA look like? / 6. Market access in industrial goods: An analysis of tariffs / 7. Market access in goods: Trade defence remedies / 8. Market access in agriculture: Tariffs and tariff-rate quotas / 9. Technical barriers to trade / 10. Reducing SPS barriers in an EU-China FTA / 11. Market access in services: China and the EU / 12. Public procurement / 13. Intellectual property rights and geographical indications / 14. State-owned enterprises (SOEs) and competition policy / 15. Investment and the BIT /Part II:Potential Economic Impact: A CGE-based simulation of effects of the FTA /16. Introduction / 17. Trade and production linkages / 18. Removing tariffs and reducing NTM costs in a China-EU FTA / 19. Modelling the FTA between China and the EU /Part IV: Conclusions and Policy Implications/ 20. Policy implications of an EU-China free trade agreement / References