Trade officials from Costa Rica and China on Friday concluded
their first technical meeting on a possible free trade agreement
(FTA) between the two countries.
Reviewing the results of the meeting, Costa Rica's Foreign Trade
Minister Marco Vinicio Ruiz said the framework to study the FTA had
been set.
A study on the possible FTA should be ready in six months and a
bilateral meeting in Beijing is scheduled for April. A final
meeting in San Jose, capital of Costa Rica, is also planned for
June.
"China has joined the World Trade Organization (WTO). Therefore
it has been adjusting its policies to international norms, and it
is very important that we have all the information at hand in order
to evaluate the FTA's potential benefits and critical points," said
Ruiz.
Ruiz said the two countries would review their macroeconomic
policies, the state of trade accords in the WTO and with other
countries, investment and trade promotion policies and the dispute
settlement mechanism.
Zhu Hong, deputy director-general of the Department of
International Trade and Economic Affairs of Ministry of Commerce of
China, said Costa Rica is an important trade partner of China in
Latin America, and two-way trade is growing rapidly, with the
volume hitting 2.6 billion US dollars from January to November in
2007.
Among Latin American countries, China has signed a free trade
agreement with Chile and is holding negotiations on such a deal
with Peru.
(Xinhua News Agency January 13, 2008)
