Lima, Nov. 17, 2006.- The acting Secretary General of the Andean Community,  Alfredo Fuentes Hernández, today called the results of the Ninety-fourth regular session of the CAN Commission, held in Lima on Wednesday and Thursday, “auspicious” and contended that the approval of nine Community Decisions at this meeting “confirms the will of the Andean countries to strengthen Andean integration and its common external projection.”  

One of the most important of the Community Decisions approved was the creation of the Integral System of Andean Community Social Indicators that will make it possible to provide social policy makers and executors in the CAN Member Countries with indicators expressed in a common language regarding areas like poverty, population and housing, education, health, employment, the environment and migration, among others and, thereby, to improve the evaluation of the social projects carried out in the subregion.   

The Secretary General of the CAN also considered that another important piece of Community legislation is the Decision that modernizes and updates the NANDINA common tariff nomenclature in order to facilitate the classification of goods, foreign trade statistics and other CAN trade policy measures.  "By updating our nomenclature, we are keeping up with advances throughout the world and have simplified the task of importers, exporters, producers, carriers and customs administrators,” he pointed out.   

He went on to draw attention to the important progress made at the meetings of the technical groups and of the CAN – Venezuela Working Group that were held in Lima on Wednesday and Thursday to define the legal provisions that will regulate the free flow of trade between the two parties over the next few years.  He stressed that trade between the CAN Member Countries and Venezuela is growing.  “Between January and September 2006, CAN exports to Venezuela reached a level approaching US$ 2,400 million dollars,” he declared. 

The Secretary General reported that the technical groups on origin, safeguards, sanitary and phytosanitary measures, technical barriers to trade and dispute settlement and institutional matters are working very hard and have made advances in several areas that will make it possible for both the CAN Member Countries and Venezuela to complete this negotiation effort this coming December 12 and 13, in Lima.