The Free Trade Agreement between China and Costa Rica will enter into force on August 1

After friendly consultation and written confirmation, the China-Costa Rica Free Trade Agreement entered into force on the same day. In the field of trade in goods, China and Colombia will implement zero tariff on more than 90% of their products in stages.

According to the agreement, China's textile raw materials and products, light industry, machinery, electrical equipment, vegetables, fruits, automobiles, chemicals, raw skins and leather and Costa Rican coffee, beef, pork, pineapple juice, frozen orange juice, jam, fish meal, mineral products, rawhide and other products will benefit from the tax reduction arrangement.

In the field of trade in services, on the basis of their respective commitments to the WTO, Colombia will be further open to China in 45 sectors or sub-sectors, including telecommunications services, commercial services, construction, real estate, distribution, education, environment, computer and tourism services, while the Chinese side will further open up to Colombia in seven sectors or sub-sectors, including computer services, real estate, market research, translation and interpretation, and sports.

In addition, the two sides also reached broad consensus on intellectual property rights, trade remedies, rules of origin, customs procedures, technical barriers to trade, sanitary and phytosanitary measures, cooperation and many other areas.

Negotiations on the free trade agreement between China and Colombia were officially launched in January 2009, and the free trade agreement was formally signed in April 2010. According to Chinese customs statistics, in 2010, the bilateral trade volume between China and Colombia reached US $3.8 billion, an increase of 19.2% over the previous year, of which China exported US $690 million and imported US $3.11 billion. China has become Costa Rica's second largest trading partner after the United States.

This is the 10th free trade agreement reached and implemented by China. Previously, China has signed and implemented free trade agreements with ASEAN, Chile, Pakistan, New Zealand, Singapore and Peru.