Australia and Chile: Developing the Bilateral Relationship

Minister for Foreign Affairs, Alexander Downer, and Minister for Trade, Warren Truss held separate meetings today with Chilean Foreign Minister Alejandro Foxley, and discussed ways to further strengthen the bilateral relationship between the two countries. Mr Foxley is undertaking his first visit to Australia (from 10-14 November) as Chile's Foreign Minister. During his visit Mr Foxley will also meet with business leaders and academics.

"We are most interested in Chile's proposal to develop an expanded and more strategic relationship between Australia and Chile" Mr Downer said. "We believe it is in the interests of both countries to strengthen and diversify our economic relations and cooperation, and for that reason we have undertaken to commence the necessary steps towards a high quality and comprehensive bilateral free trade agreement (FTA)." Mr Truss said this step would be coupled with continuing to pursue current negotiations towards a bilateral Double Taxation Agreement.

Chile is Australia's fourth largest merchandise trading partner in Latin America with approximately 120 Australian companies trading with Chile and about 70 companies having a presence in Chile. Investment underpins the bilateral relationship. With investment of around US$2.78 billion and growing, Australia is the fifth largest investor in Chile (and in the year 2005 was the largest investor with 27 per cent of total investment). Chile has upwards of US$680 million invested in Australia.

"We also agree on the importance of strengthening our political dialogue, and we highly value our cooperation in international fora, especially in the U.N., Cairns Group, the WTO, APEC and the World Wine Group, and look forward to continued close cooperation on matters of mutual interest," Mr Truss said.

Mr Downer and Mr Truss said Australia looked forward to working closely with Chile at the APEC Ministerial meetings to be held in Hanoi next week, and we are seeking a strong statement from APEC calling for the early resumption of the Doha negotiations.

Mr Downer and Mr Foxley also witnessed the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding between the Australian Defence Force Peacekeeping Centre and the Chilean Joint Centre for Peacekeeping Operations on increasing cooperation and exchanges between the two institutions.

Media Contacts:

Tony Parkinson (Mr Downer's office) 02 6277 7500
Paul Chamberlin (Mr Truss's office) 02 6277 7420