| China and Chile Signed FTA Agreement |
|
| Friday,November 18,2005 Posted: 16:43 BJT(0843 GMT) MOFCOM |
On November 18, 2005, Mr. Bo Xilai, Minister of Commerce of China, and Mr. Walker, Foreign Minister of Chile, signed the China-Chile FT A on behalf of their respective government in Pusan, ROK. President Hu Jintao and President Lagos of Chile appeared at the signing ceremony of China-Chile Free Trade Agreement.
Chinese President Hu Jintao and Chilean President Lagos declared the start of the FTA negotiations on November 18, 2004. Since January this year, the two sides had carried out 5 rounds of negotiations on market access, rules of origin, technical barriers to trade, SPS, trade remedy, dispute settlement mechanism, and related legal and technical issues. China-Chile FTA was finally reached at the end of October. The agreement was the second FTA China has signed with other countries after the China-ASEAN FTA.
For years, Chile has always been an important trading partner of China in Latin America. The bilateral trade and economic cooperation maintained a fast momentum of growth. Bilateral trade in goods has been expanding rapidly. During the period of 2002-2004, the annual average growth rate of Chinese export to Chile stood at 22%, and that of import 42%. In 2004, bilateral trade reached US$ 5.4 billion. The two economies were strongly complementary to each other in industrial structure and import and export commodity mix. China mainly exports such products to Chile as light industrial products, textile, electromechanical products and plastic products, while imports from Chile copper, fish powder, fruit and wine. China also keeps a good cooperative relationship with Chile in the areas of trade in service and investment, which enjoy broad prospects for further development.
The trade liberalization process China and Chile started will further unleash the huge potential of bilateral economic and trade cooperation, which will lead to closer bilateral economic and trade cooperative relations, more opportunities for the two business communities, and more tangible benefits for the two peoples. At the same time, the establishment of China-Chile Free Trade Area will serve as a milestone in the history of China-Chile relationship, which is beneficial to deepening the China-Chile comprehensive partnership enabling the two countries to realize common development through learning from each other and drawing upon each other’s strong points to offset each other's weaknesses, and setting a new example in South-South cooperation. Furthermore it will be conducive to intensifying the cooperation between China and other Latin American countries
After going through the respective internal approval procedures, China-Chile FTA will start the comprehensive tariff concession in the latter half of 2006. At the Chilean side, the import tariff rate of 74% of the tariff lines will be lowered to zero immediately after the Agreement takes effect, while at the Chinese side, 63% of the import tariff lines will have zero rate within 2 years; The remaining import tariff lines of both Parties, will be zero rated 5 to 10 years after the Agreement becomes effective. Each party may keep only 3% of the tariff lines as exceptions with tariff rates unchanged. This means that in 10 years after the start of the tariff concession process, the import tariff of 97% of the tariff lines of both sides will be zero. Furthermore, the Agreement provides that the two Parties may accelerate the tariff concession upon consensus through consultation. In addition to liberalization of trade in goods, the Agreement also says the two sides will strengthen the cooperation in such areas as economy, small and medium seized enterprises, culture, education, science and technology, environmental protection, labor and social security, IPR protection, investment promotion, mining and industry. |
Bilateral Visits