High level of agreement strengthens Andean position in FTAA

Lima, Feb. 15, 2003. The Andean Community Foreign Trade Ministers agreed to present today, in the FTAA, Community offerings with a large degree of coincidences in regard to investment, goods and services.

Consensuses have been reached on 86% of intra-Community trade and the Andean countries have proposed tariff reduction periods of up to ten or more years.

This decision will make it possible to move ahead more strongly with the Subregion’s integration and to prepare the Member Countries to occupy a competitive position in the FTAA, and will also facilitate the implementation of production restructuring and reengineering programs.

Andean Community Secretary General, Guillermo Fernández de Soto, pointed out that this Community offering will enable the Member Countries to proceed on very sound bases with the negotiation of their access to the FTAA. “This ratifies the will of our nations to move forward together in the hemispheric integration processes,” he stressed.

The way is being cleared for the Andean Community to deepen its economic integration and direct its efforts, in this new stage, toward other fronts, like the common foreign policy, the social agenda, the fullest possible utilization of our biodiversity, and border development.