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Costa Rica Satisfies Negotiations with China on WTO
Costa Rican Vice Foreign Trade Minister Anabel Gonzalez expressed Friday her satisfaction with the conclusion of negotiations with China within the World Trade Organization (WTO).
"These negotiations are very important for Costa Rica, for the very high customs tariffs applied to its products because it has no diplomatic relations with China and because that country does not belong to the WTO," said Gonzalez.
The negotiations concluded Friday in the WTO headquarters in Geneva are part of the process for the admission of China in that organization, and permitted Costa Rica to have an average reduction of 47 percent in the custom duties applied to its products in the Chinese market.
Gonzalez said that Costa Rica obtained "relevant conditions for 86 tariff fractions," most of them of agriculture products like bananas, coffee, and sugar, but also for some industrial products.
The tariff reduction will go in force when China concludes its negotiations with all the interested countries and it enters the WTO. Gonzalez said that those negotiations could conclude in September, or in any case, before the end of the year.
Costa Rican bananas currently pay a 40 percent custom tariff to enter China. With the negotiations, that tariff would drop to 10 percent, making it possible to compete with the Ecuadorian bananas exported to that country.
Including Costa Rica bilateral agreements between China and other WTO members has been completed with 33 countries. Still outstanding were final accords with Mexico,Ecuador and Switzerland.
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