China and Chile sign FTA. On November 18, 2005, Chinese President Hu Jintao attended APEC Economic Leaders' Informal Meeting and met with Chile President Lagos. After the meeting, the two leaders attended the signing ceremony of China-Chile Free Trade Agreement. Bo Xilai, Minister of Commerce of China, and Walker, Minister of Foreign Affairs of Chile, signed China-Chile FT A on behalf of their own government.
The start of China-Chile FTA negotiation on November 18, 2004, was announced by jointly by Chinese President Hu Jintao and Chile President Lagos. Since January this year, the two sides carried out 5-round negotiation on market access, rules of origin, technical barriers to trade, animal and plant quarantine, trade remedy, dispute settlement mechanism, and related legal and technical problems, and reached agreement at the end of October. The agreement was the second FTA of China with other countries besides China-ASEAN FTA.
Chile has always been an important trading partner of China in Latin America. The bilateral trade and economic cooperation maintained fast growth. Bilateral trade in goods has taken on a good momentum.
During the period of 2002-2004, the annual average growth rate of China exports to Chile hit 22%, and the import annual growth rate in the same period experienced a sharp fast growth of 42%. In 2004, bilateral trade of China-Chile reached US$ 5.4 billion. Meanwhile, the two economies were strongly complementary to each other in the industrial and I&E product structure.
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