CAN expects to double exports to Argentina

Lima, Aug.1, 2000. Andean exports to the Argentine market can be expected to double over the next three years, from 400 to 800 million dollars, with the entry into effect of the CAN-Argentine fixed tariff preferences agreement. So announced Andean Community (CAN) Secretariat Director General, Víctor Rico.

This increase is feasible, he claimed, not only because the agreement, which came into force today, establishes better conditions for access by Andean goods, but also due to the on-going economic recovery of the CAN countries.

Rico termed the agreement a "second step" in the strategy to form a CAN-Mercosur free trade area, of which he considered the negotiation in August 1999 of a similar agreement with Brazil to be the first.

The agreement with Argentina is particularly important, he stressed, because of the negative balance of trade with that country in 1999, when Andean exports amounted to 400 million dollars and its imports reached 1.33 billion.

"Through this agreement, our countries expect to turn around this huge deficit approaching 900 million dollars."

He cited bananas, coffee, canned tuna fish, hearts of palm, zinc and silver ores, and flowers as being among the products to benefit from improved conditions for entering the Argentine market. Argentina, for its part, obtained better access terms for its major export products, such as corn, cotton, sorghum, beef and mutton, medicinal products, aluminum, and iron piping.

According to Rico, Peru’s relatively minor exports of only 28 million dollars look likeliest to multiply, thanks to the new tariff benefits.

With CAN on the brink of talks with Paraguay and Uruguay to conclude the first phase of settling fixed tariff preferences, it appears to be "on the right path" for moving into a new stage of CAN-Mercosur negotiations.

Once the first phase has been successfully concluded, bloc negotiations will be started for the establishment of a free trade area. All products not covered in the first phase will be negotiated in a process that is expected to end next year, so that early in 2002 a CAN-Mercosur free trade area will be in operation.