The Andean Business Advisory Council, which groups together the Andean Subregion’s most important business associations and organizations, wishes to make the following public statement, in the light of recent events that have taken place within the Andean Community:

1. The Andean business community views with concern and confusion the recent announcement by President Hugo Chávez that Venezuela is withdrawing from the Hemisphere’s oldest integration process and, without a doubt, the best expression of the Bolivarian countries’ unity.

2. For many years, the Andean Community has been a source of pride and of social progress, as well as one of the region’s most important economic and political achievements.  Therein lies the undesirability of its weakening, precisely at a time when globalization is spreading throughout the world, requiring the strengthening of regions and trading blocs.

3. Andean trade has been among the most strongly growing trade in the Hemisphere and its benefits extend to the entire subregional production system, particularly the small and medium companies that create the largest numbers of trade integration-driven jobs  in our countries.    

4. This vigor has transcended the Andean Community and has made it possible to ease criteria so that its Members may negotiate jointly, individually or by groups.  Such are the cases of the negotiations with MERCOSUR, with Chile, with Mexico and, more recently, with the United States. The Member Countries were duly informed about all of these negotiations and together authorized them expressly.   

5. The Andean Community has sufficient strengths in its citizens, its infrastructure, its communications, its trade, its institutions, its hydroenergy, oil, gas, mineral, ichthyologic, and forestry wealth, its biodiversity, and in many other areas, to assume key commitments for the future that should no longer be postponed.

6. The pending agenda for the region’s development covers physical integration, respect for Andean decisions and judgments, reinforcement of the common public procurement and investment systems,  strengthening of international transportation and the deepening of integration in the service sector, among many other aspects, all of them aimed at fighting the unemployment, poverty, exclusion and inequality that still remain at high levels in the Andean countries. 

For these reasons:

1. The Andean Business Advisory Council reiterates that a split on this scale created by Venezuela’s withdrawal from the Andean integration process would seriously jeopardize the region’s growth.   

2. An open dialogue at the highest level is essential to overcome this situation.  We, therefore, call upon the Governments of the five Andean countries to immediately seek solutions to the crisis more in the Andean agenda of pending matters than in the Members’ trade agreements with third countries, and to lay the groundwork for a sounder and more modern Andean Community that would enable Andean citizens to seek a more profound relationship with each other and with the rest of the world. 

3. We also stress that while it is true that the governments are responsible for the international negotiations and agreements that will improve their citizens’ welfare, it is even truer that it is the social actors, businessmen and workers who, in practice, see that these agreements are put into effect and are made the most of.  It is, therefore, essential to strengthen the unity of government leaders and social actors through dialogue that is respectful, effective and ongoing.  

4. In order to reach a fair and equitable association agreement with the European Union, as well as with other countries or country blocs in the future, we must safeguard the negotiating power we have built up as a result of the solidary union of the five Andean countries.    

Lima, April 27, 2006

José Luis Betancourt
Chairman
Andean Business Advisory Council