Top legislator Wu Bangguo offered a four-point proposal on
Wednesday for the further development of China-Chile economic and
trade cooperation.
Delivering a speech at the Chile-China Economic and Trade
Cooperation Forum Wu said the economies of the two countries were
highly complementary and he hoped they would further improve
economic ties in four specific areas.
Implementing free trade agreement
Chile is the first Latin American country to recognize China's
full market economy status and it's the first Latin American nation
to have reached free trade agreement (FTA) with China.
Wu said the FTA signed by the two governments covered all the
content of commodity trade and its core objective was to reduce
tariff and non-tariff trade barriers and improve market access
conditions.
Implementation of the FTA would facilitate commodity trade
between the two countries and boost the development of relevant
industries, Wu said. He urged the two countries to fully use the
favorable conditions created by the FTA, continuously improve the
pattern of commodity trade, enhance exchanges of information on
markets and products and assist each other to promote products in
the Asian and Latin American markets.
Enhancing copper cooperation
Wu highlighted China-Chile cooperation on copper resources
saying that cooperation in this area was of key status in bilateral
trade. Statistics show that copper trade accounted for nearly half
of the total trade volume between China and Chile which stood at
US$7 billion in 2005.
Last February China Minmetals Corporation and Nacional del Cobre
de Chile signed a joint venture deal to mine copper resources in
Chile. According to the deal the first-phase investment for the
project involves US$550 million and the total sum will reach US$2
billion by the final phase of the contract.
The deal represents the first major copper mining project
between China, the world's biggest copper consumer, and Chile who
are the world's No.1 producer.
Wu said he hoped the governments of China and Chile would
jointly ensure the project was implemented smoothly. He also
expressed his hope that the two countries would enhance dialogue on
policies and improve coordination to ensure bilateral cooperation
on copper resources was developed in speedy and healthy way.
Expanding cooperation on infrastructure
construction
Wu said both China and Chile were developing countries and were
faced with great tasks on the construction of infrastructure. He
said China had accumulated valuable experience in construction of
transportation and telecommunication facilities.
He said that with the growth of their economies China and Chile
both had increasing demands for infrastructure construction which
could become a new field for bilateral cooperation.
Wu urged the two sides to take the opportunity and make use of
each other's experiences and advantages to further upgrade the
bilateral cooperation on infrastructure projects.
Promoting cooperation between enterprises
"Enterprises are the principal part of the market in investment
as well as bilateral economic and trade cooperation," Wu said.
Primary products and commodities of low technology took a large
proportion of the China-Chile trade and two-way investment and
cooperation between enterprises was relatively weak, he
observed.
Wu said to improve cooperation between these enterprises was the
key to upgrading the quality and level of bilateral economic and
trade cooperation. He urged the two countries to jointly promote
two-way investment and push the bilateral economic and trade
cooperation to extend from commodity trade to two-way investment
and industrial and technological cooperation.
"The Chinese government encourages China's enterprises, which
are competitive and credible, to seek business opportunities in
Chile and we also welcome Chilean enterprises to invest and expand
business in China," he said.
Statistics show that by the end of last June, Chilean
enterprises had invested in a total of 98 projects in China with
contract value of US$125 million. Twenty one Chinese enterprises
had invested in Chile with the contract value of US$27.8
million.
(Xinhua News Agency September 7, 2006)