Chile is once again paving the "Free Trade Agreement" road in South America, cementing yet another strategic Free Trade Agreement with Australia.
Chile and more recently Peru, are beginning to realize their positions along the Pacific Coast of South America is growing into a geographic blessing with the rise of Asia. Australia, which is both a very important economy in the Pacific region of Asia is also similar to Chile on many levels. Both have vibrant commodity sectors, and both are increasingly more involved with the Asian economies.
Chilean Foreign Minister Alejandro Foxley explained, “We are going to sign a Free Trade Agreement with a country that is very similar to ours because the message is that we don’t really want to compete, but would rather like to join forces.”
“The reason is obvious; we are both looking towards the Asian-Pacific region. We have free trade agreements with all of the Asian countries and we don’t have the capacity to provide on our own the supply levels of this expanding market” he added.
All in all a good decision for both parties whom hope trade cooperation will place the two nations in better positions to compete with Asia in areas outside of commodities.
Click here to access a more detailed article on this topic from MercoPress
Chile's other trade agreements within the Pacific region include (I might miss a couple and if so by all means let me know):
--- Trans-Pacific Strategic Economic Partnership: Chile, New Zealand, Singapore, Brunei
--- Bilateral agreements between Chile and the countries of: Canada, El Salvador, Cosa Rica, South Korea, the People's Republic of China, Panama, Japan, Mexico, the United States and New Zealand.
--- FTA's are also under negotiation (or unratified as of now) with the countries of Guatemala, Nicaragua, Honduras (unratified), Peru (unratified) and Colombia (unratified).
--- Looking down the line Chile has plans to begin negociations with India and Thailand, two more major economies in the Pacific.
Wednesday, August 13, 2008
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1 comments:
Two countries with a similiar excellent commodity --better known as Gato Negro and Yellow Tail--joining to mutually benefit in the Asian market, instead of competing against each other, is an ideal example to be set for other countries in Asia and latin america. If only China and Mexico could come to an agreement to bilaterally benefit from exporting to the U.S. without stealing each others' market opportunities.
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