Andean Ministers adopt agenda to boost trade negotiations

Lima, Feb. 9, 2001. Andean Community Trade and Integration Ministers meeting in Lima today adopted a working agenda and a timetable of meetings for boosting hemispheric and Latin American trade negotiations and gave their support for the launching of a new Round of Multilateral Trade Negotiations scheduled for November in Qatar.

In a declaration sent to the Director General of the World Trade Organization (WTO), Mike Moore, the Andean Ministers stated that this new round should target "job creation and the greater well-being of all of the Members through progressive liberalization of the trade in goods and services."

They drew attention to Special and Differentiated Treatment, as one of the key topics to be addressed in the new negotiations, and to "the link up [of] trade opening with development financing," concluding that the forthcoming Round should ensure "benefits [to] each and every Member" and "help to lessen the differences that exist between levels of development."

In the area of hemispheric relations, the Ministers evaluated the strategy of joint negotiation centering on the main topics of interest to the Andean countries, which they will put forward at the next meeting of Trade Ministers of the FTAA, to be held this coming April in Argentina, and agreed to hold a preparatory meeting beforehand in Buenos Aires.

The Ministers also defined their joint position on the United States Andean Tariff Preferences Act (ATPA), which will expire in December 2001. They drew up a working plan for, with the participation of the private sector, securing its renewal as soon as possible, broadening the Act to take in new products that are not presently covered, and incorporating Venezuela in the mechanism.

As part of this working plan, it was agreed that the five Ministers would visit Washington during the second half of March to set and defend their objectives before the new United States administration and Congress.

With respect to their relations with South America, the Andean Ministers sent a letter to the Foreign Minister of Paraguay, who currently occupies the chair of Mercosur, proposing that a meeting be held in the second week of March to start negotiations for establishing a Free Trade Agreement between the two blocs.

Insofar as their relations with the Northern Triangle countries are concerned, the Andean Ministers agreed to speed up the negotiation of a tariff preferences agreement and decided to hold a technical meeting for that purpose in late February.

The Trade Ministers also embarked upon an in-depth consideration of the advances that have been made in Andean integration, together with its strengths and weaknesses, in order to identify elements that will make the CAN more dynamic.

A schedule and agenda were adopted for the CAN Commission in 2001 and the Ministers agreed to participate jointly in the 2001 Bobbin World International Fair in Orlando, Florida, from August 17 to 19 of this year.

A report drawn up by the CAN General Secretariat on the present state of international cargo transport in the subregion was examined and will continue to be studied at the meeting of the Andean Committee of Land Transport Authorities to be held shortly.

The CAN Commission approved two Decisions, one on Technical Regulations governing weights and measurements for International Road Transport and the other referring to the Budget of the organization’s General Secretariat.

Consideration was also given to the report on the Complementarity Agreement in the Motor Vehicle Sector, signed by Colombia, Ecuador, and Venezuela and it was decided to further the integration of that sector at a forthcoming meeting of the pertinent Committee.

The Meeting was chaired by Venezuela’s Minister of Production and Trade, Luisa Romero, and was attended by Ministers: Marta Lucía Ramírez de Rincón, of Colombia; Juan Incháustegui, of Peru; and Claudio Mansilla, of Bolivia; together with Ecuadorian Vice-Minister Milton Cevallos.