Leuthard eyes up free trade deal with China
Switzerland is aiming to start talks to clinch a free trade agreement with China, Swiss Economics Minister Doris Leuthard revealed on Sunday.
Leuthard told the NZZ am Sonntag newspaper she would lead a large business delegation to China in June, and try to give support so that China opened negotiations with Switzerland.
China is already in free trade talks with Iceland and will start talks with Norway, Leuthard said. Both countries are members of the four-state European Free Trade Association (Efta), along with Switzerland and Liechtenstein.
“Such deals are important for Switzerland, given that we are not a member of the European Union, the North-American free trade zone or the Asian community of nations,” she said.
China is negotiating a range of free trade agreements, a trend that is spreading across Asia as prospects dim for a breakthrough in multilateral market-opening talks under the umbrella of the World Trade Organisation.
Switzerland has closed or is in talks over a score of trade deals, mostly through the Efta. It has a small number of deals outside Efta, most notably one with the European Union, and is also working on a bilateral deal with Japan.
Priority group
China is one of four emerging countries – the others are Brazil, Russia and India – in the so-called BRIC group.
In 2003 Goldmann Sachs, an investment bank, argued that the BRIC economies were rapidly developing and would account for half of the world’s industrial production over the next 40 years.
The Swiss government decided to make this group a priority in 2007.
In February Leuthard, who had just returned from Brazil on her first economic mission, said she laid great importance on trade relations with new economies.
She called for greater liberalisation, not only for industrial goods and services but also in agriculture.
Longstanding relations
In October 2006 Swiss Foreign Minister Micheline Calmy-Rey visited China and held talks with government representatives and touched on sensitive issues such as human rights.
It was Calmy-Rey’s second trip to China as foreign minister and was aimed at consolidating relations that began more than 50 years ago.
During her visit both sides signed an agreement to regulate scholarships and the exchange of high-ranking delegations from universities and other educational institutes.
Calmy-Rey told swissinfo at the time that the agreement would improve the nature of relations, which were “already good”.
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Switzerland was one of the first western states to recognise the People’s Republic of China in 1950.
The first Chinese leader to visit Switzerland was Prime Minister Zhou Enlai in 1954.
In 1996, Swiss Economics Minister Jean-Pascal Delamuraz became the first cabinet minister to travel to China for an official visit.
Bilateral relations were temporarily tarnished after the visiting President Jiang Zemin was booed by exiled Tibetans in Bern in 1999.
But ties were patched up a few months later and visits by five different cabinet ministers over the past seven years.
China (without Hong Kong) is Switzerland’s second strongest trading partner in Asia after Japan.
Swiss exports to China have risen from SFr415 million ($327 million) in 1990 to SFr3.5 billion (2005).
Chinese exports to Switzerland have risen from SFr418 million (1990) to SFr3.4 billion (2005).
Swiss direct investment in China (2005): SFr5 billion.
There are around 300 Swiss companies and 2,500 Swiss individuals in China.
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