ChinaLat Law : China and Latin America Litigation Lawyer & Attorney : Diaz, Reus, Rolff & Targ Law Firm : Trade, Business, Dispute Resolution

16:41, January 23, 2008

China replaced the United States in 2007 as Chile's biggest export destination, according to statistics released Tuesday by Chile's customs authorities.

The figures show Chile's export volume recorded a 14.7-percent rise in 2007, totaling 65.484 billion U.S. dollars, while exports to China reached 10.172 billion dollars, accounting for 15.5 percent of the total and making China its biggest export destination.

Meanwhile, China also became Chile's second biggest import source country, following just behind the United States after surpassing Argentina and Brazil, the statistics show.

Chilean entrepreneurs attribute the rapid growth of Chile-China trade to the free trade agreement with China which came into effect in 2006.

Cristian Garcia Lorca, chair of the Chile-China Trade Association, said there is still room for a further increase despite the rapid growth, and that Chilean businesses should make collective efforts to diversify the country's exports to China.

Source:Xinhua

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CCTV.com | 01-23-2008

Talks between China and Peru to set up a free trade agreement are well underway. The Andean country says it hopes to become China’s most important commercial link in Latin America.

The first round of free trade talks between China and Peru has started in Lima. Peruvian Foreign Affairs minister Mercedes Araoz and the deputy director general of International Trade Department, of China’s Commerce Ministry, Zhu Hong, attended the event. Peru is hopeful the talks can open the window for further bilateral trade between the two countries.

Mercedes Araoz, Peruvian Trade Minister said "We have in our minds that negotiations with China are negotiations for the future, not only for today but for always. Within this dynamic, China will become our principal socio-economic partner in Asia. And we will also work towards a goal where Peru becomes the principal socio-economic partner for China in the South American Pacific."

China is already one of the principal destinations for Peruvian exports. Between January and November last year, exports from Peru to China reached 2.7 billion US dollars, up over 43 percent from the previous year.

Araoz said they hope to soon offer more added-value exports, such as manufactured zinc.

Peru is increasingly seeing trade as a way to develop its economy. The country has been pushing to strike free-trade deals with countries worldwide to lure foreign investment.



source: CCTV



Printed from http://www.bilaterals.org/article.php3?id_article=10993

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4 January 2008
Upstream
By XU YIHE


Deal between giants CNPC and PDVSA set to be revived

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez is expected to revive a major oil deal with China in his upcoming visit to the Asian powerhouse this month.

The deal will call for China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC) to expand operations at Venezuela's MPE-3 oilfield, as well as build pipelines and terminals to move about 600,000 barrels per day of heavy oil to China by 2013.

"It is an integrated project involving multi-billion US dollars," people familiar with the deal told Upstream.

They added that Venezuela is keen for China to build the infrastructure, which was not included in the earlier agreement.

The deal has also prompted CNPC to proceed with the building of three refineries in southern China, including one in Shenzhen city and one in Huizhou city, both in Guangdong province, to process the heavy oil.

The country has also signed a memorandum of understanding with a Chinese shipyard to build very large crude carriers to move the fuel to China.

Venezuela said earlier that it will boost oil supplies to China to 1 million bpd by 2012, up from the 500,000 bpd expected in 2010. The current volume is 250,000 bpd.

It was announced in late 2006 that Venezuela would end production of the country's unprocessed heavy oil because it was "too cheap", said one source.

PDVSA has decided not to make any new investments in the expansion of that business and only to honour existing contracts, such as the one signed with CNPC.

However, as the crude price hovers around $100 per barrel, Venezuela is said to be ready to sell more of the heavy oil at a much higher price.
CNPC first signed the deal with PDVSA to develop MPE-3 in 2001. The company then built a refinery in Venezuela with a capacity of 6.5 million tonnes per year.

Since then, under Venezuela's nationalisation plans, all the oil contracts PDVSA signed with foreign companies need to be reviewed and re-signed.

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20 December 2007
BBC News


Havana, 19 December: Cuba and China agreed to boost economic and commercial relations in the energy sector after signing a memorandum of understanding on Wednesday in Beijing.

The document was signed by Cuban Minister of Government Ricardo Cabrisas and Xie Zhenhua, vice president of China's National Commission for Development and Reform (CNDR).

According to a Prensa Latina report, the two parties decided to lead cooperation projects related to renewable energy and energy savings into a new stage. This would entail exchange of information about policies, strategies, technologies, projects and training.

Representatives from both countries said strengthening energy collaboration is of the utmost importance for the economic development of their respective nations.

Present at the signing ceremony were Coordinator for Renewable Energy Projects Manuel Menendez, Foreign Investment Minister Ramon Ripoll Diaz, Cuban Ambassador to China Carlos Miguel Pereira and other government officials from the two signing parties.

Cabrisas travelled to Beijing heading a delegation to the 20th Session of the China-Cuba Intergovernmental Commission beginning December 20.

CNDR and the Cuban Ministry of Basic Industry are the responsible authorities to implement the actions set out in the document.

Source: ACN news agency, Havana, in English 19 Dec 07

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China, Costa Rica work on possible free trade deal
(Xinhua)
Updated: 2008-01-12 15:58


Trade officials from Costa Rica and China on Friday concluded their first technical meeting on a possible free trade agreement (FTA) between the two countries.

Reviewing the results of the meeting, Costa Rica's Foreign Trade Minister Marco Vinicio Ruiz said the framework to study the FTA had been set.

A study on the possible FTA should be ready in six months and a bilateral meeting in Beijing is scheduled for April. A final meeting in San Jose, capital of Costa Rica, is also planned for June.

"China has joined the World Trade Organization (WTO). Therefore it has been adjusting its policies to international norms, and it is very important that we have all the information at hand in order to evaluate the FTA's potential benefits and critical points," said Ruiz.

Ruiz said the two countries would review their macroeconomic policies, the state of trade accords in the WTO and with other countries, investment and trade promotion policies and the dispute settlement mechanism.

Zhu Hong, deputy director-general of the Department of International Trade and Economic Affairs of Ministry of Commerce of China, said Costa Rica is an important trade partner of China in Latin America, and two-way trade is growing rapidly, with the volume hitting 2.6 billion U.S. dollars from January to November in 2007.

Among Latin American countries, China has signed a free trade agreement with Chile and is holding negotiations on such a deal with Peru.

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In an article tiled "Past and Present and Recent Legislative Developments," Hermes Pazzaglini examined the most significant legislative innovations in the People's Republic China within the broader context of the historical development of the Chinese legal system. 

According to Pazzglini, the current PRC laws can broadly be traced to:

(1) the traditional concept of law and state authority, as a result of which, the authorities' discretionary powers under morder Chinese law are often wide and unchecked;

(2) civil law, predominantly inspired by the laws of the Soviet Union and Eastern European countries; and

(3) common law, whose influence has gradually increased as the knowledge of English has spread. This is most visible, according to Pazzglini, in the following areas:

• contracts are becoming increasingly complex and typical common law clauses (such as force majeure and entire agreement) are becoming more frequent;
• comparisons with Anglo-American laws have become increasingly significant in academic writing;
• some influences of Anglo-American law are begining to emerge in legislation.

In the article, Pazzglini specifically examines the Chinese company law , bankruptcy law and property law reforms.

Acknowleging the tremendous changes in the Chinese law, especially after China's accession to the WTO in 2001, Pazzglini emphasizes, however, that Chinese law remains a socialist civil law system 'with Chinese characterists.'  According to Pazzglini, despite the comprehensive system of remedies against abuse of power by the executive in the 1989 Administrative Procedure Law and the 1999 Administrative Review Law, challenges to administrative decisions are extremely rare and are normally limited to matters concerning fines and policy custody.

Pazzglini envisons that the main tasks facing the Chinese government in the reform of its legal system in the next few years are:

• WTO compliance: an increase in transpiracy, consistency and certainty of the law and its implementation is required;
• The formulation of the Civil Code, now scheduled for 2010 (The author emphasizes that given the uniqueness of the Chinese economic system, the Chinese Civil Code has no choice but to be original);
• The very task of providing an adequate legal framework for a country that not only is one of the largest in the world, but seems now on the way to becoming a world-class economy.

The task is daunting, and China seems to have no intention of taking a shortcut by ditching its traditional legacy or its socialist-law characteristics, Pazzglini observes. However, Pazzglini states that in recent years, China has been making a habit of achieving seemingly impossible goals and he would not be surprised if China were to surprise the world again by achieving this one.

Note: The entire article can be found in Business Law International, Vol. 8, No. 3, November 2007.

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OECD Development Centre Events and Meetings 2008

January 22
Paris-La Défense.

China-Latin America: A Win-Win Relationship
Presentation by J. Santiso, Director of the OECD Development Centre, at the COFACE Country Risk Conference 2008.

Chine-Amérique latine : une relation gagnant-gagnant
Présentation de J. Santiso, Directeur du Centre de développement de l'OCDE dans le cadre du Coloque COFACE Risque Pays 2008
elizabeth.nash@oecd.org

For more information, please visit:

http://www.oecd.org/document/4/0,2340,en_2649_33731_35567812_1_1_1_1,00.html#January  

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The Associated Press (Dec. 07 2007)

Coast Rica and China announced Friday they have agreed to jointly explore for oil and natural gas in Central American country.

More more information, please visit http//www.uofaweb.ualberta.ca/chinainstitute/.

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15 November 2007
Latin America News Digest


Venezuela will export 500,000 barrels per day (bpd) of crude oil to China in 2010 and 1.0 million bpd in 2012, according to agreements recently signed by the two countries, Venezuelan oil and gas monopoly PDVSA said on November 14, 2007.

Venezuela and China will create a joint transport company to manage the crude supplies. The company would allow them to avoid third party operators and to reduce transport costs.

Currently, there are another two operating Venezuelan-Chinese joint-ventures, namely Petrosinovensa and Petrozumano. Their daily output is projected to stand at 180,000 bpd and 70,000 bpd in 2009. Petrozumano is a joint-venture between PDVSA and Chinese CNPC.

CNPC also takes part in the processes of estimation and certification of the oil reserves in the oil block Junin 8, in Venezuela's Orinoco Belt basin. The block's reserves are estimated at 40 billion barrels and its daily output is expected to reach 200,000 bpd in 2010.

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