Guatemala's ambassador to the World Trade Organization (WTO), Eduardo Sperisen-Yurt, signed the Protocol of Accession of Guatemala to the free trade agreement with the countries of the European Free Trade Association (EFTA) consisting of Switzerland, Norway, Liechtenstein and Iceland.
The Ministry of Economy stated that the signing took place in the Principality of Liechtenstein, a country of a block that does not belong to the European Union, which has a market of 13.5 million inhabitants and a domestic product GDP of $90,000 dollars per capita, proving it has a high purchasing power.
Last year, Guatemala exported US $12.7 million to EFTA. Its main destination was Norway with products such as coffee, milk, perfumes, vegetables, bananas, fruit, cardamom, clothing, and alcoholic beverages, among others.
Guatemala imported from that region $41.6 million dollars worth of goods such as chemicals, mineral fertilizers, seafood, medicines, watches, beauty preparations, medical devices and machinery.
According to Enrique Lacs, an expert on international trade and independent analyst, "this is a low-impact trade agreement because our relations with these four countries are very small and they are relatively small economies". He added that Norway and Switzerland were the head of this group and that the signing of this agreement would help them "complete the opportunities that there might be, particularly with these two countries."
He stated that Switzerland was a little big, but that the other countries were even smaller than Guatemala, but with a much higher level of life.
He added that what they were probably looking for "a very specific market niche, maintaining a business relationship that can grow in the long term, and attracting investment, possibly also in the long term."
According to Sperisen-Yurt, "the treaty will create a solid platform to increase the flow of trade between our countries, it will help diversify the products exchanged and promote an environment of certainty for foreign direct investment."
Preferences of the products included
EFTA will grant free access to 77% of primary and processed agricultural products from Guatemala, 10% of the goods will have tariff preferences and 13% were excluded. Moreover, Guatemala granted free access to 43.8% of primary and processed agricultural products, another 29% will be liberalized in periods of 5 to 10 years, 0.8% enjoy tariff preferences and 0.2% on a tariff quota to Switzerland.
Source: Siglo21.com.gt