China signs free trade agreement with Costa Rica

China's commerce minister Chen Deming and his Costa Rican counterpart Marco Ruiz signed the China-Costa Rica Free Trade Agreement in Beijing on April 8. Both parties agreed that they will strive to implement the agreement in late 2010 after regulatory approval.
According to an official from the international division under the Ministry of Commerce, talks between China and Costa Rica were efficient as they only lasted one year and one month. Reporters learned that this is the first time China has signed a free trade package with a Central American country. So far, China has reached free trade deals with ASEAN member countries, Chile, Pakistan, New Zealand, Singapore, Peru and Costa Rica.
As for the trade of goods, at least 90 percent of the goods from both sides will gradually enjoy zero tariff access to each other's markets. The goods which will benefit from tariff reductions mainly include China's textile raw materials and products, light industrial products, machines, electrical equipment, vegetables, fruits, automobiles, chemical products, raw fur, leather products, as well as Costa Rica's coffee, beef, pork, pineapple juice, frozen orange juice, jams, fish meals, mineral products and rawhide.
As for service trade, Costa Rica will further open 45 service sectors to China, and China will further open seven service sectors to Costa Rica, which is based on the WTO commitments of both sides. Meanwhile, the two sides have achieved broad consensus on rules of origin, customs procedures, technical barriers, sanitary and phytosanitary regulations, trade remedies and others.
Costa Rica is now an important Central American trading partner of China's and China is Costa Rica's second largest trading partner, only after the United States. According to statistics from China Customs, the China-Costa Rica bilateral trade volume reached nearly 2.9 billion U.S. dollars in 2008, 32 times more than in 2001. Although most major economies in the world fell into recession in terms of foreign trade in 2009, the China-Costa Rica bilateral trade volume rose to nearly 3.2 billion U.S. dollars in that year, up over 10 percent compared to 2008. Moreover, China's imports from Costa Rica reached almost 2.7 billion U.S. dollars in 2009, up nearly 17 percent over 2008.