The European Union and Switzerland are in negotiations aimed at full liberalisation of trade in agricuture and food products between them.
In a statement on Tuesday, EU Commissioner for Agriculture & Rural Development Mariann Fischer Boel said the EU and Switzerland have made a lot of progress over the years in freeing up bilateral trade and want to take the process to "its logical conclusion."
Switzerland is the EU's third biggest trade partner in the sector with 70% of Swiss agricultural exports going to the 27-nation bloc and 7% of the EU's agro-food exports going to the Alpine state.
In 2007, total EU agro-food exports to Switzerland amounted to 4.7 billion euros ($US5.99 billion). Corresponding EU imports from Switzerland were 2.7 billion euros.
