China and Chile sign historic free-trade agreement

Updated at 12.21pm:
The mainland and Chile on Friday signed a free-trade agreement on behalf of their nations — the first between China and a Latin American country.

Chilean Foreign Minister Ignacio Walker and his Chinese counterpart Li Zhaoxing signed the pact during a ceremony on the sidelines of the Asia Pacific Economic Co-operation forum in Busan, South Korea. Chinese President Hu Jintao and Chilean President Ricardo Lagos witnessed the signing.

No details of the agreement were immediately released.

Earlier on Friday, Lagos defended bilateral free-trade agreements in a speech to a business executives’ meeting at the Apec forum, which has achieving free trade between its 21 member economies by 2020.

Lagos said the ultimate goal remains a strong multilateral trading system based on the World Trade Organisation.

“The fact that we have so many trade agreements doesn’t mean that Chile, as any other country, is not so much involved in what is going to happen next month in Hong Kong,” Chilean President Ricardo Lagos told Pacific Rim chief executives.

Hopes of advancing the WTO’s trade liberalisation goals at a ministerial meeting next month in the Chinese territory have soured because of disputes over agriculture and other issues, which recent talks in Europe have failed to resolve.

“It is essential that the leaders be able to put all of our political will and to instruct the negotiators that it is necessary to succeed,” said Lagos. “If we succeed, then at the world level I’m sure we’ll be much closer to reaching an agreement next month in Hong Kong.”