Switzerland is looking to start negotiations to clinch a free trade agreement with China, Swiss Economics Minister Doris Leuthard revealed recently. This deal is evidently very crucial for Switzerland especially in a condition when the country is not a member of the European Union, the North-American free trade zone or the Asian community of nations. Switzerland has already in negotiation over a range of trade agreements mostly through European Free Trade Association (EFTA). It has considerably a little number of trade deals outside EFTA, most notably one with the European Union, and is also working on a bilateral deal with Japan.
On the other hand, China is already involved in free trade talks with Iceland and expected to set off talks with Norway over free trade agreements. Both countries are members of the four-state EFTA, along with Switzerland and Liechtenstein. China is briskly negotiating a series of free trade agreements, following a craze that is spreading across Asia amid faint possibility for a breakthrough in multilateral free global trade talks under the umbrella of the World Trade Organisation.
The Swiss Minister, Doris Leuthard, has recently revealed the information that it is emgaged in free trade talks with china saying, ‘I will lead a large business delegation to China in June, and I will try to give support so that China opens negotiations with Switzerland’.
As a matter of fact, the Swiss government wants to increase its trade relationship with new developing countries such as India, Brazil, China and Russia, collectively known as BRIC. Few years back a study conducted by investment banker Goldman Sachs has concluded that the BRIC economies were rapidly developing and would account for half of the world’s industrial production over the next 40 years.
The Switzerland land government has given a call for greater liberalization of not only industrial goods and services but agriculture as well.
