In September 2020, the EU and China signed an agreement on cooperation and protection of Geographical Indications (GIs) – according to which China would recognise and protect 100 EU agri-food GIs (96 excluding the UK), and the EU would do the same with 100 Chinese agri-food products. The agreement came into force in January 2021.

The full text of the agreement and the list of EU GIs covered is available at: https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=uriserv:OJ.LI.2020.408.01.0003.01.ENG. The agreement safeguards in particular the protection of the translation and transliterations of GI names in Chinese language; it also automatically rejects all trademark applications misusing the GIs, as well as third-party registration of protected GIs.

Furthermore, four years after its entry into force, the scope of the agreement is meant to expand to cover an additional 175 GIs from both sides; a mechanism to add even more GIs in the future is also included.