The Ministry of Development, Industry and Commerce (Mific) reported through official media that Nicaragua is preparing to negotiate a Free Trade Agreement (FTA) with China, a country with which it re-established diplomatic relations last year.
According to the statements of Jesús Bermúdez, head of the Mific, the agreement would cover different areas that have to do with sanitary measures, the environment and trade.
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According to Bermúdez, the agreement between Beijing and Managua will be signed within a year and a half. “We already have a proposal for a legal framework for negotiations, which is a framework where the rules of the game are set, for both parties to be able to negotiate,” said the Ortega official through the regime’s propaganda media.
He added that the agreement would cover the tariff universe. He also indicated that it must wait until the beginning of 2023 for the FTA to enter into force “with a much broader coverage.”
On the other hand, he highlighted that the Early Harvest agreement is being worked on with China, with the aim of covering 90 percent of everything we exported to Taiwan, a country with which Ortega broke diplomatic relations at the end of 2021.
The Mific stated that the treatment that will be given is zero percent in the People’s Republic of China. They express that the review of the final agreement has already been made of this treaty and the only thing missing is the signature that could occur this month.
“China expands for its own interests”
In reference to the expectations with this Free Trade Agreement between China, the lawyer and economist Marco Aurelio Peña explained to Article 66 that remains to be seen, because “political discourse always makes people rich in promises, supposedly for the well-being of people.”
“Sometimes this political discourse plays with the expectations, hopes and desires of people to feel and experience well-being and collective human development in the short term, but in economics things don’t work like that, they don’t change magically. ».
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He also emphasized that there could be good projections depending on there being a completely safe arrangement, “but what is the safety of it”, because China Taiwan was a very generous cooperator, because most countries do not recognize it as an independent State, On the other hand, Continental China is not in that circumstance, rather it is the economy that competes with the United States for economic leadership at a global level and is already a great trading partner of many South American countries,” he explained.
“In principle, there is no argument for Continental China to be as generous with Nicaragua as China Taiwan was politically speaking, because in this case, China expands for its own interests.”
Other explanations made by the expert is that between China and Nicaragua there is an inequality in both economy and population, however there is a political affinity because both are authoritarian regimes.
Peña concluded that there are antecedents that have been promised, such as the construction of the great Interoceanic Canal, which has not yet been completed, for which reason there should be distrust in these agreements.
