Tariff reduction under China-Switzerland FTA to begin on 1 July

Trade & Policy

Tariff reduction under China-Switzerland FTA to begin on 1 July

China’s Ministry of Finance announced that tariff reduction programme under the China-Switzerland Free Trade Agreement (the "China-Switzerland FTA") will be implemented beginning July 1, 2014. The China-Switzerland FTA is the first FTA signed between China and a country in continental Europe, and is also one of the highest-level and most comprehensive free trade pacts China has reached in recent years.

According to the China-Switzerland FTA and reckoned in terms of the bilateral trade volume between the two countries in 2010, China will gradually remove import customs duties levied on 84.2% of the exports from Switzerland to China while Switzerland will immediately eliminate duties on 99.7% of Chinese exports to Switzerland.

It is estimated that China will remove duties on 92% of its tariff lines for Swiss imports and Switzerland will remove duties on 89% of its tariff lines for Chinese imports. The trade volume involved in the tariff reduction programme will account for more than 96% of the total bilateral trade.

Swiss goods covered under the tariff reduction programme include mainly metal products, machinery parts and components, home appliances, certain categories of watches, precision instruments as well as fine chemicals, coffee, cheese, etc. Chinese goods enjoying zero tariffs or tariff reduction from Switzerland include all types of industrial products and most agricultural products.

The Ministry of Finance indicates that the implementation of the customs tariff reduction programme under the China-Switzerland FTA will be favourable to the import of Swiss advanced equipment and technology by Chinese enterprises to drive the transformation and upgrading of related industries.

At the same time, Switzerland's elimination of customs tariffs for all Chinese industrial products and the elimination or reduction of customs tariffs for most agricultural products will help towards the export of Chinese industrial products such as car parts and components, metal products, textiles and garments and agricultural products such as vegetables, fruits and processed food to Switzerland. Particularly, Switzerland's reduction of customs tariffs will allow Chinese agricultural products greater access to the Swiss market than like product of other countries.