MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Trade dispute with neighbors

Chile formally requested last week the intervention of the World Trade Organization, WTO, regarding “discriminatory” taxing by Uruguay and Peru, against imported goods.

"Under the WTO controversy solution mechanism, Chile has requested consultations with Uruguay involving the discriminatory application of the "Internal Specific Tax", IMESI, since imported goods must pay double the same tax, solely for being imported", according to the Chilean International Economic Relations Office.

Chileans argue that the IMESI Uruguayan tax rate is similar for each category of goods, but it has an additional 30% tax base for goods from neighboring countries, (Brazil and Argentina), and an additional 100% tax base for non neighboring countries.

Regarding Peru, Chile is requesting a committee of experts to check the sales tax, --with an 18% rate--, which is now applied to all imported goods, eliminating all previous exemptions.

Besides the Peruvian "discriminatory" sales tax, identified as IGV, is only applicable to imported goods, and therefore discriminatory against similar foreign goods. Some of the goods directly punished by the Peruvian IGV are apples, grapes and peaches.

Chilean-Uruguayan trade in 2001 reached 118 million US dollars, while with Peru, 763 million US dollars. In both cases Chile has a trade surplus