A method and apparatus for deriving a motion vector predictor (MVP) for a motion vector (MV) of a current block of a current picture in Inter, or Merge, or Skip mode. The method selects a co-located block corresponding to a co-located picture and receives one or more reference motion vectors (MVs) of one or more co-located reference blocks associated with the co-located block. The method also determines a search set and determines a search order for the search set, if the search MV corresponding to the given reference list is not available, the search order then searches the search MV corresponding to a reference list different from the given reference list. Finally, the method determines the MVP for the current block based on the search set and the search order and provides the MVP for the current block.