The first meeting of Sino-Chilean free trade agreement negotiation committee is about to open in Beijing. On January 19, Chilean Ambassador to China Pablo Cabrera held an exclusive interview with People's Daily, during which he talked freely about the Sino-Chilean free trade agreement negotiation.

Cabrera noted Chinese President Hu Jintao paid a state visit to Chile last year, during which he attended the 12th APEC Economic Leaders' Informal Meeting held in Santiago. Hu's visit to Chile was fruitful in starting talks on Chilean-China free trade agreement. Chile is the first Latin American nation to start such talks with China and the Chilean government has laid high attention to the talks.

It is obvious that rapid economic development has been made in China with more influence the world over. Chile believes that China is an important force in maintaining peace and promoting development in the world. Chile wants to know more about China and vice versa. There are numerous reports about China everyday in Chilean media.

Chile earnestly hopes to develop cooperative relations with China since there is a solid foundation on Sino-Chilean cooperation. Among the South American countries, Chile is the first to establish diplomatic relations with China, the first to support People's Republic of China in restoring its legitimate seat in the UN and the first to recognize the status of China's market economy. All these facts have proved China and Chile are sincere friends and important cooperative partners.

China and Chile share many common grounds as both are situated in the Pacific region, are the APEC members and have common development task. Chile has put forward a goal to reach the standard of the developed countries in the world by 2010 while China is also striving hard for building a well-off society in an all-round way. The cooperation between the two countries not only benefits the peoples of the two countries, but also boosts the cooperation between East Asian and Latin American countries.

Sino-Chile friendly cooperative ties have been developed rapidly in recent years with remarkable results. In 2002, apart from the Memorandum of Feasibility Research on the Signing of Free Trade Zone Agreement between China and Chile, the two sides also signed a tourism cooperative agreement and a letter of intent on cultural exchanges between the two governments, bringing the exchanges and cooperation in politics, economy, trade, science, technology and culture between the two countries to a new high. In 2003, the Sino-Chilean bilateral trade volume reached more than 3.5 billion US dollars, and the volume in the first 11 months of last year exceeded 4.8 billion US dollars. China exports commodities including machinery equipment and toys to Chile and imports copper ores, paper pulp and fruits from Chile.

There still exist great potentials for further developing Sino-Chilean cooperation. The Chilean side wants to enhance cooperation with China in the areas of mineral and tourism resources, in which Chile is rich, with more people traveling to each other's country; to enhance the media exchanges and promote mutual understanding between the two countries. Meanwhile, the Chile side also is working hard to hold aviation negotiations with China, realizing a direct flight to China. China has held Yunnan folk song and dance performances, Chinese painting exhibition and movie festival in Chile. The Sino-Chilean cultural exchanges can be further enlarged in light of the certain influence of Chinese culture in Chile.

Chile is optimistic about the prospect in the future development of Chilean-China relations and has recorded several "firsts" in developing its relations with China. Ambassador Cabrera hopes Chile will be the first country in Latin America to reach the free trade agreement with China. As for the development of Chilean-China ties, Chile wishes to achieve more firsts.

By People's Daily Online