Today, the Foreign Ministers of Argentina, Jorge Faurie, and Chile, Heraldo Muñoz, signed a new trade agreement between both countries at the Palacio San Martín in order to expand and strengthen the legal instruments that currently govern them in trade matters, which contains provisions relating to various areas such as Investment, Services, Government Procurement, Telecommunications and E-commerce, among several others.
At the event, Foreign Minister Faurie stated that "the agreement revamps our bilateral relationship and our trade", highlighting "the commitment of Presidents Macri and Bachelet towards greater interaction between our regional blocs, Mercosur and the Pacific Alliance".
"The boost given by our Presidents to integration has been very important for Argentina and Chile, at this point of the 21st century, to tackle the challenges of modern times and to provide answers for their peoples, who wish to live peacefully in an environment of growth, employment, and shared prosperity," the Argentine Foreign Minister stated in summary during his address.
The agreement, which both Foreign Ministers characterized as "state-of-the-art", seeks to create the conditions to increase bilateral trade and reciprocal investments, as well as to create new opportunities for trade in services and e-commerce. One of its new provisions eliminates within a year the additional cost of roaming in communications, which is a concrete benefit for Chilean and Argentine citizens travelling to the other country. On the occasion, an agreement on mutual recognition of digital signatures was also signed in order to facilitate e-commerce.
"We want these agreements to benefit our people; this will be felt tangibly when we create more high-quality jobs in relation to the various aspects addressed in this agreement," Heraldo Muñoz stated. He also added that "the agreement we signed today marks a milestone. We have achieved substantive and real, rather than rhetorical, progress in bilateral integration."
Faurie explained that "the agreement includes new issues and paves the way in various fields, not only in trade, tariffs and e-commerce, but also in technical barriers, guarantees for investors, phytosanitary rules and simplification of customs formalities; it also takes into account gender, employment and environment-based perspectives."
The agreement is the culmination of five rounds of negotiations conducted over a year, and supplements and completes a series of agreements between Argentina and Chile, specifically Economic Complementarity Agreement No. 35 between MERCOSUR and Chile, the Agreement on Avoidance of Double Taxation (in force since October 2016), and bilateral dialogue mechanisms.
Press release No. 497/17
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