China has issued guidelines for implementing the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP), the world's largest free trade deal so far.

China's Ministry of Commerce, together with five other government departments, rolled out the guidance for the high-quality application of RCEP on Wednesday.

Yu Benlin, director-general of the Department of International Trade and Economic Affairs of the Ministry of Commerce, said the guidelines aim to encourage local governments and industries to seize the development opportunities brought by the agreement and fulfill its commitments. It is expected that those guidelines will act to coordinate domestic enterprises and help them adapt to a more open environment.

With a total of 30 measures, the guidelines span a wide range of areas, including facilitating commodity trade, bolstering investment and enhancing the protection of intellectual property rights.

Officials say more than 90 percent of the commodity trade will eventually be tariff-free under the RCEP framework, and the participating enterprises should make full use of the benefits.

Luo Junjie, department chief of China's Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, said RCEP would help Chinese companies explore new markets and increase trade scale with RCEP members. At the same time, it will also help RCEP member countries make full use of China's mega-size market to expand economic and trade scale, increase trade exchanges, and jointly expand and strengthen the RCEP market.

RCEP entered into force on January 1, 2022. It covers a market of 2.2 billion people, nearly a third of the world's total population, and is worth more than $26 trillion, about 30 percent of the global gross domestic product.

Read more:

RCEP free trade agreement comes into force, set to contribute to post-COVID recovery