China and El Salvador begin negotiations for a free trade agreement
MSN | 10 November 2022
China and El Salvador begin negotiations for a free trade agreement
by Daniel Stewart
The Chinese and Salvadoran authorities announced Wednesday that they have begun negotiations to achieve a Free Trade Agreement (FTA) between the two countries "as soon as possible".
The Chinese ambassador in El Salvador, Ou Jianhong, said that talks have begun and that "they are working together to conclude (the agreement) as soon as possible".
"Negotiating and signing the Free Trade Agreement (FTA) is another significant fruit of bilateral economic and trade cooperation", said the diplomat in statements reported by the Salvadoran newspaper ’El Mundo’.
This program will serve to "continue exploring the potential and bilateral cooperation in economic and commercial areas, promoting sustainable, stable and diversified development in bilateral trade and investment", she added.
The president of El Salvador, Nayib Bukele, confirmed the news through a brief message published on his profile on the social network Twitter in which he indicated that his country will sign the FTA with China, in the framework of the abolition of the same treaty with Taiwan.
"China is the second largest economy in the world and El Salvador had been isolated from that potential for our trade, for our products", Bukele has justified.
In this sense Bukele stressed that the lack of relations with Beijing, "will no longer be so", having "had all this time an excellent relationship".
The signing of the FTA "will open a range of opportunities": "We should produce everything that is of interest to the Chinese people", he added.
For its part, a spokesman for the Ministry of Commerce of China explained that "since the establishment of diplomatic relations between China and El Salvador, the two sides have effectively promoted the deepening of cooperation in various fields of economy and trade, achieving fruitful results".
"In order to further tap the potential of bilateral economic and trade cooperation," the two countries initiate talks "as soon as possible" to complete the process, the ministerial portfolio said in a statement.
