Minister of Commerce Gao Hucheng met with Schneider-Ammann, the visiting President of the Swiss Confederation and Minister of Economic Affairs, Education and Research in Beijing on April 8. The two sides exchanged views on issues concerning China-Swiss bilateral trade and economic relations, the implementation of China-Swiss FTA, the two-way investment and the WTO Doha round negotiations.
Gao Hucheng said that in recent years, leaders of both China and Swiss have made frequent visits and the bilateral trade and economic relations have maintained steady growth. In June 2015, President Xi Jinping met with Ammann, then the vice President of the Swiss Confederation who attended the signing ceremony of the Articles of Agreement of the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank. Premier Li Keqiang visited Swiss in 2013 and 2015. With the help of the country leaders of both sides, the China-Swiss FTA officially came into effects in July 2014. It’s the first one package free trade agreement that China has signed with the European countries and has played a positive role in deepening bilateral trade and economic cooperation. At present, China-Swiss bilateral trade maintains steady growth and the two-way investment is active, especially that the Chinese enterprises have quickened their steps in going global. China’s investment in Swiss has great potentiality and many new major projects have sprouted up. China and Swiss have sustained sound cooperation under the framework of WTO, and China would like to strengthen its communication with Swiss on further promoting the Doha round negotiations.
Schneider-Ammann said, the Swiss-China FTA has come into effects for more than one year and it had injected new vigor into the bilateral trade and economic relations. The Swiss side would like to join efforts with the Chinese side to continue to well implement and publicize the FTA. At the moment, China has been Swiss’ reliable cooperation partner in investment , and the two-way investment has developed rapidly with fruitful results. Swiss applauded China for its positive contribution to the WTO Doha round negotiations and hoped to make new progress on the negotiation with China.
Vice Minister of Commerce Wang Shouwen attended the meeting.
