China-Switzerland Free Trade Agreement Comes Effective Benefiting Fastener Industry

The free trade agreement between China and Switzerland has become effective since July 1st. This is the first free trade agreement China signed with a European country. Analysts think that such an agreement can not only bring direct benefits to both countries, but also facilitate companies in both countries to invest each other. This agreement will boost the bilateral cooperation of these two countries to “jump high”. When the agreement comes effective, Switzerland will adopt the tariff-free policy direct on 99.7% of products imported from China while China will also gradually adopt its tariff-free policy on 84.2% of products imported from Switzerland (incl. 67% of products benefited from the direct tariff-free policy). The other 17% will be completely tariff-free probably within 5 to 10 years in the fastest pace or no more than 15 years.

China has been recently the largest trade partner of Switzerland in Asia and Switzerland is the 7th largest trade partner of China in Europe and its 6th largest origin of foreign investment. In 2013, the bilateral trade value between these two countries reached USD59.5 billion. According to statistics, the average profit of Swiss companies in China grew nearly 10% and 62% of these Swiss companies are planning to expand their investments in China.

This agreement will bring a new era for the cooperation between China and Switzerland and auto parts, metallic products made in China and Swiss made precision instrument, mechanical parts, and metallic products will all benefit from the tariff free measures.