Photo: Shangrila Farms, Yunnan Province, China
BERN, SWITZERLAND – “Switzerland’s free trade agreement negotiations with China are in a rather early stage but they are well underway” following the third round of talks between the two countries, Swiss Ambassador and Delegate for Trade Agreements Christian Etter has told GenevaLunch.
Switzerland, which has a trade surplus with China despite the former’s small size, has taken a European lead in working out a free trade agreement (FTA) with Asia’s giant economy since the two signed a Memorandum of Understanding 28 January 2011, says Swiss President Micheline Calmy-Rey.
“It shows we’re not afraid,” she said, smiling, at a press conference in Geneva 28 November. She was treating it lightly, but Switzerland is keen to keep the negotiations moving, particularly in the wake of a slowdown in negotiations between China and Iceland and China and Norway.
Both sides have said they would like the talks to move swiftly.
EU’s Almunia says stable trade framework is the way forward
The comments come as the European Union’s anti-trust boss called for less bickering and a better trade framework between the EU and China, at the EU-China Forum held in Brussels this week, organized by the Friends of Europe. Joaquın Almunia is quoted by Dow-Jones 29 November as saying that “everything linked with intellectual property rights, innovation, know-how, is not well-solved in our relations, we are discussing with our Chinese partners but I don’t find we have a stable framework to benefit from both sides of our common understanding.” He added that “playing this same kind of game means these pressures, these intensities will increase.”
Swiss-China trade picks up while Swiss-EU trade slows
Switzerland is China’s ninth largest trading partner in Europe, with the smaller country having a trade surplus for 2011 of CHF2.13 billion by the end of October. China is Switzerland’s largest trading partner in Asia. During the first 10 months of the year Switzerland’s exports to China grew by 26.2 percent, while imports from China slipped by 3.3 percent.
China is Europe’s largest trading partner and its trade surplus with Europe is €160-€180 billion in 2011, according to the Wall St Journal.
Trade has been stagnant between the EU and Switzerland during the first 10 months of the year, with exports to the EU down 0.5 percent and imports up 3.1 percent.
Iceland was the first European country to start FTA negotiations with China but its talks have cooled down, with Iceland’s application to join the European Union. Negotiations began formally in July 2010; EU membership would exclude implementing a separate FTA with China.
And talks with Norway have slowed down since China expressed its displeasure over the 2010 Nobel Peace Prize being awarded to Chinese dissident Liu Xiaobo.
Third round of negotiations covered hefty list of topics
The latest round of talks in the free trade negotiations between Switzerland and China took place in Montreux 8-10 November. The talks were launched in Davos in January, with talks held once in Bern and once in Beijing.
The two teams in Montreux held expert level discussions and exchanged information on respective regulatory systems and FTA-practices covering several areas: trade in goods, trade in services, rules of origin, customs procedures and trade facilitation, technical barriers to trade (TBT) and sanitary and phytosanitary measures (SPS), trade remedies, intellectual property rights, competition and dispute settlement.
The heads of of the two delegations and experts discussed investment promotion, cooperation on trade and sustainable development, and cooperation on government procurement, and agreed on follow-up work in all areas.
The fourth round of negotiations are expected to take place in China in early 2012.
Background
- World Trade Organization, most recent trade policy review for China, June 2010
- EU / China Partnership and Cooperation Agreement
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Switzerland and China will initial an agreement in Geneva 30 November to undertake a feasibility study for a free trade agreement. The two countries agreed early in 2009 to work together to this end and they will now formalize the work. Bilateral trade between the two was CHF11.1 billion in 2008, a 30-fold increase since 1980.
Emmenthal cheese, the holey one (no holes in the Japan-Switzerland free trade agreement)
Bern, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Details have now been published by the Swiss government of the new free trade agreement between Japan and Switzerland that goes into effect 1 September 2009. High on the list of special items for which no tax import duty will be charged is “gift” fruit coming to Switzerland from Japan. The fruit will need to be larger and specially packaged, generally for sale of individual pieces of fruit, and sold at a price well above the market average fruit prices. Swiss cheeses will be given preferential import duty treatment, starting with 600 tons of cheese the first year and climbing to a ceiling of 1,000 tons in 11 years. This doesn’t include 23 tons of fondue, also given preferential duty treatment.
Bern, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Switzerland and its largest commercial partner in Asia, Japan, will officially begin a free trade agreement 1 September. Switzerland has become the first European nation to enter an economic alliance with the “Land of the Rising Sun.”
Peru’s parliament voted in favour of suspending a controversial “legislative decree” 9 June and agreed to review the laws with increased input from native peoples of the Amazon region.”We hope to find the necessary consensus with the native communities and to be able to incorporate our international obligations as soon as possible”, said trade minister, Mercedes Araóz.
The laws had provoked major disturbances in the Amazon region north of the capital Lima over the past two months, culminating in deadly clashes between protesters and the police late last week. The laws were implemented in order to comply with provisions in Peru’s free trade agreement with the US, which was recently ratified by the US Congress. BBC, El Comercio (Spa), CNN
Wen Jiabao, Chinese premier, left and Hans-Rudolf Merz, Swiss president, right
Bern, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Switzerland Tuesday became the first country whose investors will receive a “higher level” of protection in China, under the terms of a bilateral agreement signed during a working visit by Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao. The two countries also agreed to set up a working group to study a free trade agreement that should go into effect “as soon as possible.”
This is the first high-level working visit by a Chinese official since President Jiang Zeming was in Bern in March 1999.
