China and Costa Rica signed a free-trade agreement Thursday, less than three years after the Central American nation dropped diplomatic ties with Taiwan in favour of Beijing, according to dpa. The pact would promote bilateral trade and help the two nations increase their share of trade in other markets in Asia and Central America, the Chinese Ministry of Commerce said in a statement on its website. Chinese Commerce Minister Chen Deming and his Costa Rican counterpart, Marco Ruiz, signed the agreement, which the two sides hoped to implement as early as the second half of this year, the statement said. China's first free-trade agreement with a Central American country commits the two nations to a phased lifting of import tariffs for about 90 per cent of goods, it said. The agreement opens for investment 45 service sectors in Costa Rica, including telecommunications and real estate, and seven sectors in China. Tariff reductions are to apply to Chinese products that include textiles, light industrial goods and machinery and to Costa Rican coffee, beef and fruit juice. China is Costa Rica's second-largest trading nation while Costa Rica ranks ninth for China's trade with Latin America nations, China's official Xinhua news agency said. Bilateral trade was valued at 3.18 billion dollars last year, up from 2.89 billion dollars in 2008, the agency quoted Chinese customs statistics as saying. China has also signed free-trade agreements with Chile, Pakistan, New Zealand, Singapore, Peru and the Association of South-East Asian Nations.
