ISDS Case Map
China
In the last few months, Chile has made it clear that it intends to become a trade platform between the vast Asia Pacific region and the Andean countries, by means of trade treaties and political integration. Prompt re-entry into the Andean Community of Nations (CAN) would be a step in that direction.
Having initiated the idea of a free trade agreement with China, the Howard Government has been stung by its implications and has fallen back to a strategy of caution and protracted negotiation that will extend beyond the 2007 national election.
Singapore and China will start negotiations for a bilateral Free Trade Agreement (FTA).
Chilean President Michelle Bachelet signed a free-trade agreement with China to increase sales of copper, fruit and fish oil to Asia's second-biggest economy.
The Federal Industry Minister has ruled out abolishing import tariffs in the automotive and clothing industries as part of a free trade agreement with China.
Industry plans for Australia's manufacturing, textile and clothing industries are not up for negotiation in a free trade deal with China, the federal government says.
The region covered by the North American Free Trade Agreement will loom large as chief executives across all industries plot their growth in 2007, according to a survey commissioned by the New York Stock Exchange. The executives listed the US and China as the top two "strategically important" countries.
Labor leader Kim Beazley has accused a China-based Australian of growing rich on Australian intellectual property and wants the Government to slowly ditch trade negotiations with China.
As free trade deals go, it's got the potential to be a whopper.
The Australian manufacturing industry though, is nervously awaiting the outcome of a Federal Cabinet debate today on a free trade deal with China. Cabinet ministers will consider if it should offer to cut tariffs on Chinese imports in return for greater access to China's services industry.
How is the debate inside cabinet about what should be put on the table for the free trade agreement with China and what should be kept in the cupboard, playing in Beijing's secretive pagodas of power?
