“Sino-Swiss FTA: Technical Barriers and How to Reduce Them” was the name of the conference organized last week by swisscham in collaboration with swissnex China and the Consulate General of Switzerland.
Our two specialists, Christophe Perritaz and Juerg Vollenweider from the Swiss State Secretariat of Economic Affairs, gave us insightful speeches about: Free Trade Agreements as a foreign policy’s instrument, the Sino-Swiss FTA and the reduction of technical barriers in trade.
Mr. Perritaz highlighted in his speech the importance of FTAs for a country like Switzerland which has such a small domestic market. He also mentioned that FTAs are often used to complete what is not sufficiently covered in the World Trade Organizations’ agreements. This conference has also been an opportunity to get some practical examples of FTA’s application and technical trade barriers thanks to Mr. Vollenweider’s presentation.
At the end of the insightful presentations the audience had the chance to ask more specific questions to our experts. These individual questions led to a vivid and interesting discussion giving concrete examples of technical barriers and challenges in the FTA’s application.
Contributed by Loris Savary, Junior Project Leader at swissnex China