Relations between Guyana and the Andean Community were advanced yesterday in discussions between top government officials and Sebastian Alegrett, the Secretary General of the five-member community.

Foreign Minister, Clement Rohee, told reporters at a press conference at his Ministry that Alegrett had been receptive to the proposal for a Memorandum of Understanding, similar to that which Guyana concluded with Mercosur, earlier this year.

Alegrett - who was also at the press conference - said that in its effort to establish closer relations with the Caribbean Community (CARICOM), the Andean Community saw Guyana acting as a bridge between the two groupings. He said too that in trying to forge a South American Free Trade Area it was necessary to forge closer links with Guyana and Suriname.

Alegrett, whose visit here was at Rohee's invitation, said that another reason for the trip was to increase the level of trade and investment between Guyana and Venezuela, Colombia, Bolivia, Peru and Ecuador, the member countries of the Andean Community. The level of that trade is US$18 million annually and Alegrett said that there was much scope for increasing that amount.

The Secretary General said that his visit here was also to improve links between the private sectors of Guyana and the countries of the 110 million-people Andean Community with a combined Gross Domestic Product of US$300 billion.

Earlier in the day he told private sector representatives at an engagement he had with them that greater contacts had to be promoted through trade missions, trade fairs, seminars and similar activities.

Andean Community exports to Guyana, he said, include among other things, beer, aluminium cables, herbicides, refrigerators, apparel, cement, wire and electrical supplies. Guyana, he added, exports minerals, wood and fish and there is potential for larger exports.

Alegrett also disclosed that the Andean Development Corporation (ADC), to which Jamaica belongs, could provide assistance for infrastructural development projects. He pointed out that the road from Manaus in Brazil to the Venezuelan border was financed by the ADC.

Explaining the rationale for seeking closer relations with CARICOM, Alegrett said that the two communities needed to find common positions on a number of issues involved in the negotiations for the Free Trade Areas of the Americas, the Millennium Round of Negotiations of the World Trade Organisation, and the negotiations with the European Union.

Alegrett said that these engagements consume material and human resources which with co-operation could be better utilised and the two secretariats could lay the groundwork for co-operation in the various talks.

Director General of the Andean Secretariat, Nicolas Lloreda, who was also at the press conference said that in discussions with representatives of the CARICOM Secretariat yesterday it was agreed that information would be exchanged and policies co-ordinated as far as possible for the WTO Millennium Round and the FTAA process.

Commenting on the trade agreements between CARICOM and Venezuela signed in 1992 and with Colombia in 1994, Lloreda said that there was scope for greater trade investment than has flowed from the two agreements.

He said too that the arrangement for greater bilateral trade between Colombia and Jamaica, Guyana, Barbados and Trinidad and Tobago scheduled for the fifth year of the agreement was not yet being actively pursued.

Alegrett and Lloreda arrived here on Sunday and are scheduled to leave today. Besides meeting with Rohee and officials of the CARICOM Secretariat, they met President Bharrat Jagdeo and representatives of the CARICOM Secretariat. The Andean Community integration process began 30 years ago with the signing of the Agreement of Cartagena.

The Community has a strong institutional and legal framework and includes an autonomous General Secretariat which Alegrett heads that acts as an executive body; a Court of Justice, a Parliament, two financial institutions as well as Business and Labour Advisory Councils that ensure an active role for these two sectors in the integration process.