The signing of a trade agreement with China is scheduled for next Wednesday, May 10, announced the Minister of Production, Foreign Trade, Investments and Fisheries, Julio José Prado.

The company will do so virtually and simultaneously in Beijing and Quito on Wednesday next week. Places and time are yet to be defined, according to the agreement between the Production Portfolios of both countries.

“On Wednesday of next week, we will sign a trade agreement with China so that the process can continue from there and so that it can be implemented in Ecuador,” Prado said during an event in Guayaquil.

Last January, after ten months and four rounds of negotiations, the successful completion of technical negotiations for the signing of the agreement was announced.

From there, the process continues within each country. The Minister explains that after negotiations and signatures, the Constitutional Court must review that document and then go to the National Assembly to ratify or reject it.

Its entry into force depends on the ratification of the agreement in the Assembly. “In less than a year, we negotiated and signed, in record time, it will now be up to other state functions to continue with agility,” says Prado.

The text of the agreement excludes about 800 sensitive products to protect the national industry. These products represent 10% of the national tariff, indicated last January Minister Prado, who revealed that there are more than 400 articles related to the textile sector that have been preserved so that they are not directly affected by the competition with China’s zero tariff.

The sectors of metal processing, steel, ceramics and white industry are also protected.

97% of the export supply from Ecuador to Costa Rica will benefit from the trade agreement

China is the first destination of Ecuador’s non-oil and non-mining exports. In the entire year 2022, 4343 million dollars of products were sold to that destination, which is an increase of 15% in quantity and 60% in value. This year, trade continues to grow and between January and February this year, $760 million was shipped, mostly shrimp. This represents an 11% increase compared to the same period last year, according to data from the Ecuadorian Federation of Exporters (Fedexpor).

The government points out that the trade agreement opens the largest market in the world to Ecuador with about 1.425 million inhabitants.

Technical closure of negotiations with South Korea has also been given and subscription is awaited. Although the start of negotiations with Canada is planned between this month of May and June; and in June and July with the Dominican Republic and Panama.