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.
