On August 5, the National Congress of Chile passed Free Trade Agreement with Thailand, which entered into force 60 days later. This is Chile’s fifth agreement with a country from the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), following those it reached with Malaysia, Singapore, Brunei, and Vietnam (the latter of which is not yet in force).
The Chile–Thailand FTA covers topics such as trade in goods and cooperation, rules of origin, sanitary and phytosanitary measures, customs procedures, legal matters, trade defense, technical barriers to trade, services, and financial services.
Once the agreement enters into force, more than 90% of bilateral trade will be duty-free. Among the major Chilean products that will benefit from immediate tariff elimination are avocados, walnuts, raisins, condensed milk, beef, poultry, pork, paper and paperboard, copper cathodes, and copper concentrates, among others. The Thai goods that will be duty-free as of October include petroleum, natural gas, cars, vans, and canned pineapple. The tariff elimination schedule for all other goods is for between three and eight years.
