Peru, Canada sign free trade agreement
27 January 2008
Peru, Canada sign free trade agreement
LIMA (AFP) - Peru and Canada have signed a free trade agreement at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, that will likely triple Canada’s four-billion-dollar-a-year investment in Peru, President Alan Garcia said Saturday.
He said the agreement, signed late Saturday by the trade ministers of both countries, would free up the exchange of goods, services and investments between the two countries.
"Canada has a production output 12 times greater than Peru’s and buys 600 billion dollars (of goods) per year from other countries," Garcia told RPP radio, adding that he hoped to add Peruvian wood, mine products, farming and manufactured products to the list.
He said that at the tune of four billion dollars a year, Canada was, after Spain, Peru’s second-biggest investor. The free trade deal, he added, could triple that amount.
Garcia said the free trade agreement (FTA) with Canada, which needs to be approved by lawmakers in both countries, made sense because it followed neighboring Chile’s lead and Peru’s FTA with the United States.
He called on Peru’s Congress to promptly ratify the FTA with Canada "so it can benefit both our economies."
