MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Canada/Chile trade quintuples in the last five years

Trade between Chile and Canada has quintupled in the past five years, with a whopping 1.45 billion US dollars in goods now exchanged, reports Chile's International Economic Relations Directorate (DIRECON),

DIRECON says the Free Trade Agreement (FTA), signed in 1997, has pushed the dramatic increase in Chilean-Canadian trade, and that the pork, chicken, wood, wine, fruit and wool markets are especially well developed between the two countries. The FTA "third stage," signed in 2003, removed any remaining tariffs and allowed Chile to greatly benefit from Canadian technological know-how. The FTA has also changed the composition of the export market. Before the agreement, industrial products represented about half Chile's exports to Canada. Today, however, they account for only 25%, with mineral (mostly copper) exports accounting now for more than 70%. Because of record high copper prices, the result has been an 800 million US dollars trade surplus for Chile. Chilean officials from both private and public trade promotion agencies organized a seminar recently about how to do business with Canada to celebrate the FTA 10th anniversary. Over 300 Chilean companies currently do business with Canada. (Santiago Times)