Ecuador ratifies the trade agreement with China amid fears of indigenous people and environmentalists

The National Assembly (Parliament) of Ecuador ratified this Wednesday the trade agreement signed last May with Chinamaking it the fourth country in Latin America to launch a free trade agreement with the Asian giant, after Chile, Peru and Costa Rica.

The agreement was ratified by the plenary session of the Assembly with 76 votes in favor, 23 against and 35 abstentions, after a tense session in the chamber that lasted for three hours in which parliamentarians both for and against intervened.

In the days before, the business unions had emphasized the multitude of opportunities that would open up for Ecuador when applying this treaty, while indigenous groups, environmentalists and ecologists showed their fears that it would open the door to the entry of toxic waste and to fishing fleets of China to Ecuadorian waters.

The session of the Assembly to discuss this issue resumed this Wednesday after almost a month suspended to dialogue with the different groups and demystify the possible damages that the free trade agreement with Chinasaid the president of the House, the Christian socialist Henry Kronfle.

“This is not a political issue, it is not a partisan issue, it is an eminently technical issue.”he added.

The free trade agreement was signed in May 2023 under the presidential mandate of the previous president, banker Guillermo Lasso (2021-2023), but his successor, businessman Daniel Noboa, supported its ratification supported by other conservative groups in the Legislative Chamber. .

Rising business relationship

This agreement will provide a boost to relations Ecuador with Chinawhich since 2022 became its first commercial partner by unseating USA as the first destination of the non-oil exportsespecially shrimp (prawn) and shrimp concentrate lead and copper.

Trade between both countries in 2022 reached US$ 12,295 million. While Ecuadorian exports to China reached US$5,843 million in 2022, Chinese sales to Ecuador They amounted to US$ 6,452 million.

Thus, the treaty will allow freeing of tariffs for entry to China immediately to 50% of the exportable supply of Ecuadorwhich will reach 99.6% over the course of ten years, since there will be gradual reductions in other products.

The Minister of Production, Foreign Trade, Investment and Fisheries, Sonsoles García, assured that this treaty represents a great opportunity for the different productive sectors, particularly micro, small and medium-sized enterprises (MSMEs), as well as the popular and solidarity economy. .

García highlighted that the agreement allows Ecuadorian companies to reach a market of 1,400 million people with greater ease, which will increase income from at least 8,000 million. exports and will allow access to 50,000 new jobs for Ecuadorians in the next 5 years.

Conflicting opinions

On the eve of the debate, the Ecuadorian Business Committee, which brings together the chambers of several productive fronts in the country, urged the Assembly to ratify the agreement, considering unfounded the fears of environmentalists and indigenous people, who affirm that the treaty would import goods “trash” and that there would be risks of “pollution” in the country.

Those “They are understandable fears.“but they are”far from what was negotiated in the agreement and the current regulatory framework that exists in the country“, stressed the Business Committee that participated as a guest in the FTA negotiations with China.

“Ecuador maintains its sovereign power to prohibit and control the entry of products that put the population at risk or that contaminate our environment“, he added in the writing and added: “A trade agreement does not restrict the right to avoid the entry of polluting goods”.

For opposition groups, the agreement now ratified will exacerbate the multiple crises of environmental and collective rights experienced by the people of the region. Ecuadorian Amazon and would introduce new sources of pollution and environmental and social conflicts.

They also believe that it will harm the food sovereignty of Ecuador and will enhance deforestation with the tariff-free introduction of transgenic seeds and the “overexport” from food to Chinawhich they fear will enhance the loss of biodiversity and the contamination and degradation of soils due to the use of fertilizers.