Under the FREE TRADE AGREEMENT, around 99.7% of Chinese exports to Switzerland will be duty-free and the duty-free percentage of Swiss exports to China will be 84.2%. China – Total trade in goods with China has increased by 8.1% since 2011. As a target for Costa Rican exports, trade with China increased by 12% in the years following the entry into force of the free trade agreement. On the other hand, imports from China increased by an average of 10.1% Negotiations on the free trade agreement began in September 2004, when the trade ministers of the two countries met on the sidelines of ASEAN plus three meetings of economy ministers. The first round of negotiations was launched in May 2012. The two sides signed the free trade agreement in June 2015 after 14 rounds of negotiations. The official implementation of the China-Costa Rica Free Trade Agreement will lead to a deepening of cooperation in bilateral trade in goods, services and investment, and give new vitality and connotation to the further development of bilateral relations between the two countries. Since the establishment of the China-Pakistan Free Trade Agreement, enterprises in both countries have been offered more business opportunities and convenience, and more benefits have been brought to consumers in both countries. The volume of bilateral trade continued to grow rapidly, from $6.9 billion in 2007 to $16 billion in 2014, with annual growth of about 15.3%. Singapore – Total merchandise trade with Singapore has declined by an average of 12% per year since the signing of the free trade agreement with the Asian country in 2013. While imports of singapore`s products via Costa Rica grew at a rate of 1.2%, Costa Rican exports to Singapore decreased by 25.7% per year between 2013 and 2016. The corresponding provisions of the free trade agreement will allow more than 60% of the products of the two countries to enter the other country`s market immediately duty-free and will allow for the gradual elimination of tariffs on 30% of products over the next 5 to 15 years. According to the website of China`s Ministry of Commerce, China`s top exports that will benefit from the free trade agreement include textiles, machinery, electrical appliances, vegetables, fruits, automobiles, chemicals, raw fur and leather.

At the same time, thanks to tariff reductions, Costa Rican coffee, beef, pork, fruit juice and jam products can also debut in the Chinese market at lower prices. The Free Trade Agreement between China and Costa Rica entered into force on 1 August 2011. Negotiations on a free trade agreement began in January 2009 following then-Chinese President Hu Jintao`s visit to the Central American country in November 2008. After more than a year of intensive negotiations, the two sides signed the free trade agreement in April 2010. The China-Australia Free Trade Agreement (FTA) officially entered into force on 20 December 2015. Once the agreement is fully implemented, 96% of Australian goods will enter China duty-free, while 100% of Chinese exports to Australia will receive duty-free treatment. China`s raw materials and textile products, light industry, machinery, electrical equipment, vegetables, fruits, automobiles, chemicals, raw fur and leather products, as well as Colombian coffee, beef, pork, pineapple juice, frozen orange juice, jam, fish meal, products, raw skins and other products will benefit from the tax reductions. Costa Rica has become a major trading partner of China in the Central American region, and China has become Costa Rica`s second largest trading partner after the United States. The China-ASEAN Free Trade Area (FTA) was fully completed on January 1, 2010, and since then, China has become ASEAN`s largest trading partner, while ASEAN has become China`s third largest trading partner. CEPA VI continues economic liberalization between Hong Kong and the Mainland Dominican Republic – Free trade between Costa Rica and the Dominican Republic was introduced following the signing of one of Costa Rica`s cross-border free trade agreements.

Thanks to the implementation of free trade relations between Costa Rica and the Dominican Republic, total merchandise trade between the two countries has increased by an average of 10.2% since 2002. On November 17, 2008, China and Costa Rica signed a Memorandum of Understanding to open negotiations on a free trade agreement. The first round of negotiations took place on 21 January 2009. The second round took place in April 2009 in Shanghai, China. The third round took place from 15 to 17 June 2009 in San José, Costa Rica. The fourth round took place in Beijing, China, in September. The fifth round of negotiations took place on 2 and 6 September. It was held in Beijing in November 2009.

CARICOM – Among Costa Rica`s free trade agreements that govern relations between Costa Rica and a group of countries is the free trade agreement with CARICOM. CARICOM consists of four countries (Trinidad and Tobago, Barbados, Belize and Guyana). The agreement was signed in 2005. China and New Zealand formally launched free trade negotiations in December 2004 and concluded them in December 2007 after 15 rounds of negotiations. In addition to duty-free access for products, the two countries agreed to open the services sectors to each other for bilateral free trade and mutual investment. Costa Rica will allow free service enterprises in 45 sectors, including telecommunications, business services, construction, real estate, distribution, education, environmental services, information technology (IT) services and tourism, while China will open seven sectors in return, including COMPUTER services, real estate, market research, translation and interpretation, and sports. In November 2005, then-Chinese President Hu Jintao and former Chilean President Ricardo Lagos witnessed the signing of the Sino-Chilean Free Trade Agreement (FTA). The agreement entered into force in October 2006. Under the agreement, China and Chile will extend phase-by-phase duty-free treatment to 97% of products in ten years.

Costa Rica is China`s second largest trading partner in Central America, while China is Costa Rica`s second largest trading partner. In recent years, bilateral trade between the two countries has grown rapidly. In June 2007, China and Costa Rica established diplomatic relations. In November 2008, Chinese President Hu Jintao visited Costa Rica and announced with Costa Rican President Oscar Arias the opening of free trade negotiations between China and Costa Rica. To date, China has signed and implemented a free trade agreement with ASEAN, Chile, Pakistan, New Zealand, Singapore, Peru and Costa Rica. At the same time, the mainland as well as Hong Kong and Macau signed and implemented a Closer Economic Partnership Agreement (CEPA). The mainland and Taiwan have signed and implemented the Framework Agreement on Cross-Strait Economic Cooperation (ECFA). In the area of merchandise trade, China-Costa Rica will gradually introduce zero tariffs on more than 90 percent of its products and enter the “era of zero tariffs.” United States – The agreement between the United States and Costa Rica has been one of the most publicly discussed free trade agreements in Costa Rica. Total merchandise trade between Costa Rica and the United States has grown at an average annual rate of 4.3% since the free zone came into effect in 2019. Costa Rica`s exports grew at an annual rate of 5.2%, from $2.9 billion in 2009 to $4.2 billion in 2016.

Over the same period, imports from the United States also increased, from $4.7 billion to $6.1 billion. The United States as a destination for Costa Rican exports increased from 34% of Costa Rica`s overseas sales in 2009 to 40% in 2016. In recent years, China and Costa Rica have established good cooperation in the fields of bilateral trade, investment and employment contracts, and bilateral economic and trade exchanges have shown a rapid development trend. The China-Pakistan Free Trade Agreement (FTA) officially entered into force in July 2007. The two countries signed the agreement on 24 November 2006. Negotiations began in April 2005 during the visit of former Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao to Pakistan. The Free Trade Agreement (FTA) between China and Iceland entered into force on 1 July 2014. Iceland is the first developed European country to recognize China as a fully-fledged market economy, as well as the first European country to negotiate a free trade agreement with China.

The two sides also reached a broad consensus on intellectual property, trade remedies, rules of origin, customs procedures, technical barriers to trade, sanitary and phytosanitary measures, cooperation and many other areas. The two countries began negotiations on a free trade agreement in April 2007 and signed the agreement in April 2013 under the witness of Chinese Premier Li Keqiang and Icelandic Premier Johanna Sigurdardottir. The China-ASEAN FTA (DCFTA) is the first free trade agreement in China`s foreign negotiations and the largest free trade area. THE DCFTA has vigorously promoted the stable and rapid development of long-term bilateral trade and economic relations […].