The Chamber of Deputies of Chile approved this Thursday (8.11.2018) a Free Trade Agreement (FTA) with Argentina, which seeks to expand and deepen investments, services and customs procedures between both neighboring nations.
Chile and Argentina have an economic complementarity agreement, through rules established in 1996 in the Mercosur pact, so this FTA establishes new legal instruments to govern their commercial relationship.
Purpose:
The trade agreement aims to expand and modernize the legal instruments currently in force, in areas such as investments, services, telecommunications and electronic commerce.
It will incorporate chapters on technical barriers to trade and sanitary and phytosanitary measures, and will introduce disciplines related to trade facilitation in the area of customs procedures.
Finally, chapters containing new disciplines in the areas of Environment, Labor, Gender, Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises, Public Procurement, Cooperation and Competition Policy, constituting a modern regulatory framework that meets the current expectations of international negotiations.
The agreement must now be considered by the Senate.
Bilateral trade
Argentina is Chile's second largest trading partner in the region and sixth in the world. Trade grew 21% to US$4.000 billion in 2017.
Exports from Chile to Argentina, between 2003 and 2017, reached, on average, 832 million dollars. The industrial sector represents 86,6% of exports, followed by mining with 8,8% and agriculture, forestry and fishing with 4,6%.
Chilean imports from Argentina were on average 3.685 billion dollars. Intermediate Goods represent 69% of the average, followed by Consumer Goods, with 25%, and Capital Goods, with 6%.
Source: Chamber of Deputies of Chile
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