Hong Kong SAR and Peru Signed Cooperation Arrangement on Trade and Investment Facilitation

China's Ministery of Commerce announced that the FTA with Peru will be effective next year, see here. Hong Kong S.A.R., which is a separate jurisdiction from the People's Republic of China, is not included in this agreement.
Song Shutao of Xinhua wrote in May 2008 that Hong Kong S.A.R. and Peru signed a Cooperation Arrangement on Trade and Investment Facilitation.

Song wrote: "It also covers cooperation between the two economies in areas of intellectual property rights, customs and competition-related matters, as well as technical assistance and capacity-building in areas of mutual interests."

Read the press release of Hong Kong's Commerce and Economic Development Bureau here.

Read the Xinhua article here.

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"Free Trade Agreement China-Peru Effective 2009"

A Free Trade Agreement (Tratado de Libre Comercio Perú – China) was announced at a summit in Lima, Peru, between President Alan Garcia and Hu Jintao, read CNN article about it here. Bi Mingxin of Xinhua wrote that a spokesperson of the Ministry of Commerce (MOFCOM) told that the Free Trade Agreement (FTA) between the People's Republic of China and Peru will become effective in the second half of 2009, read here.

"The two sides also reached consensus on a variety of issues including investment, intellectual property rights and customs regulations, the MOC [MOFCOM] official added."

First the Ministry of Foreign Trade and Tourism of Peru and the Ministry of Commerce of China did a feasability study, see here. The pages 137-141 are about intellectual property rights.

You can find more about this FTA at Wikipedia, here.

Whether China and Peru have agreed to go beyond the minimum requirements of TRIPs is unclear to me at this point. To be continued.

Read also in Spanish Aurelio Lopez-Tarruella Martinez' article about it on IP Tango: here.

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