Under the terms of the Trade Agreement between the Swiss Confederation and the People's Republic of China of 20 December 1974, a watchmaking memorandum was signed during the visit in Switzerland of Chinese Prime Minister Li Kequiang. The Federation of Swiss Watch Industry (FH) and the State Secretariat for Economic Affairs (SECO) signed the memorandum of agreement with the China Horologe Association and the Chinese Minister for Industry and Information Technologies. The aim is to create a quadripartite working group under the auspices of the Joint Bilateral Economic Commission established by the 1974 trade agreement. The signature of this memorandum also further paves the way for the free trade agreement between Switzerland and China, which will be signed in the coming months.
The watchmaking working group will serve as a forum for exchanges and cooperation between the parties. It will aim at encouraging the development of trade relations, protecting intellectual property rights and indications of origin, particularly Swiss made, carrying on the fight against counterfeiting and exchanging feedback. The working group will be able to examine the concrete problems that players in the sector are facing, both in Switzerland and in China, and to issue concrete suggestions to solve these problems. The working group is expected to meet at least once a year.
Needless to say that the size of the Chinese market is very important for the Swiss Watch Industry. Therefore, the FH felt it was worthwhile to be involved in setting up this working group. In practice, the latter will provide an additional platform in which experts can better promote the interests of the Swiss watch industry.
