Chile and Brazil have concluded negotiations for a free trade agreement between the two countries. According to official sources, it will probably be signed before the end of the year.
After four rounds of negotiations, the representatives of the two nations finalized the preliminaries of the bilateral agreement, which will complement the one already in force between Mercosur and Chile, said the Brazilian Foreign Ministry. Brazil is Chile’s largest trading partner in Latin America and the main destination of Chilean investments abroad , worth 31,000 million dollars.
The agreement between Mercosur -a bloc composed of Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay- and Chile has already allowed for the elimination of import tariffs for bilateral trade. The new agreement will go further and include 17 new sections, such as trade in services and electronics, telecommunications, sanitary and phytosanitary measures, elimination of obstacles to trade, intellectual property and a chapter dedicated to small and medium-sized enterprises, among others.
“The new agreement will help boost trade and investment flows between Brazil and Chile, in the sectors of both goods and services. It will constitute, at the same time, a vector of approximation between the Mercosur and the Pacific Alliance and of reinforcement of the regional integration “, indicated the Brazilian chancellery.
The Santiago Times reported on Chile being one of the members of the Pacific Alliance together with Colombia, Peru and Mexico. Chile is also Brazil’s second largest trading partner in South America and an important destination for Brazilian investments in the region. In 2017, the commercial exchange between the two countries reached 8,500 million dollars, which represented an increase of 22% over the previous year. Between January and September of this year, this number reached 7,210 million dollars.
