Cereal grains, chocolates, cheeses, salmon and hake are those foods that will have to wait another year to have tariff benefits.
The Advanced Macro Agreement (AMA) between Chile and the European Union (EU) seeks to modernize the current trade agreement that the South American country has with the old continent. The initiative was already approved by the Chamber of Deputies at the beginning of September, while the European Parliament did the same in February of this year.
Regarding the economic benefits that this would have, there is the increase in the quantity of exported products that would have tariff reductions, going from 94.7% to 99.6%, almost the total of Chilean shipments to the EU.
And for this and several other aspects and benefits, this treaty is of special interest to the country, even more so considering that the European Union is Chile's fourth largest trading partner, where trade grew by an average of 4.5% between 2002 and 2023, reaching US$ 18,517 million last year.
Agreement with the European Union is still in Congress
However, although the agreement has already been approved in Europe, the Senate only began discussing it two weeks ago. In addition, after the government took the urgency out of the agreement, there is no set deadline for its approval, El Mercurio reports.
And although the Foreign Ministry told the aforementioned media that it expects the agreement to be approved before January of next year (at the end of the legislative year), an article establishes that it will enter into force three months after the procedure ends, so regardless of the date on which it is approved by Congress, its implementation will not occur this year.
Along these lines, although the AMA grants a zero tariff to the majority of Chilean products, some of them will enjoy this benefit immediately, but others will do so in the next three, five or seven years from the start of its implementation.
The same applies to the expansion of quotas for this type of product: some will be immediate, others progressive.
Chilean products affected
According to the newspaper, cereal grains, chocolates, cheeses, salmon and hake are among those foods that will have to wait another year to receive tariff benefits.
The same applies to bacon, milk, and infant formulas, among others, which did not have tariff reductions but do so with this agreement.
In this context, ChileCarne president Juan Carlos Domínguez was critical and told El Mercurio that "what is not understood is that one hears the story of all political sectors and they agree, but they do not move on to action."
"This has costs for the country, not only economic but also in terms of prestige: the EU approved this in February, so the signal that Chile is sending by delaying almost a year is a bad signal," Domínguez lashed out.
