Ecuador expects free trade agreement with China this year

The Minister of Production, Foreign Trade, and Investment, Julio José Prado, affirmed on Wednesday, August 17, at the presentation conference of the XV China-Latin America and the Caribbean (China-LAC) Business Summit that they are confident of closing a free trade agreement (FTA) with China this year.

In a video message for the event held in Beijing, the minister stated that they plan to conclude negotiations for a trade agreement between China and Ecuador “this year (2022)” and that they can “announce it during the summit” that will take place in Guayaquil in December.

If it goes ahead, Ecuador will become the fourth Latin American country to endorse a trade agreement with China after Chile, Peru, and Costa Rica.

In addition, Prado pointed out that Ecuador “is one of the most stable economies in the region. A country that seeks to promote a profound transformation based on rules of competitiveness”.

At the conference, Ecuador’s ambassador to China, Carlos Larrea, stated that “to look to Asia is to look to the future of the world” and that the Asian country, in particular, has continued to expand its openness to the outside world by optimizing its trade structure.

NEW SILK ROAD

In the section on trade, the ambassador emphasized that the value of trade exchanges between China and Latin American and Caribbean countries in 2021 reached US$452 billion, with an increase of 41% over the previous year, thanks mainly to the supply of vaccines and other anti-epidemic material by the Asian country.

Also present at the conference was the vice director of the China Council for the Promotion of International Trade (CCPIT), Zhang Shaogang, who declared the “profound interest” that the Latin American and Caribbean region has awakened for China in recent years.

The China-LAC business summits have been held since 2007, with more than 1,000 companies and 17,000 representatives involved over 15 years.

In recent years, China has attracted several Latin American countries to the New Silk Road, the infrastructure project launched by Xi Jinping to improve China’s connection with its main partners, which has aroused misgivings in Washington.

With information from El Comercio