Rio de Janeiro, August 20, 2004

The General Secretary of the Andean Community, Allan Wagner Tizón, in a speech before the Inter American Juridical Committee in Rio de Janeiro, explained the need to promptly create a South American Community of Nations through the progressive convergence of the Andean Community, MERCOSUR and Chile for the purpose of driving development in the region and its international insertion.

Ambassador Wagner, at the invitation of said Committee, indicated the need to immediately implement the free trade agreements signed in 2003 by Peru as one party, and Ecuador, Colombia and Venezuela as the other with the countries of MERCOSUR. It is common knowledge that Bolivia has been an associate member of MERCOSUR since 1996.

At the same time, the General Secretary of the Andean Community, during a conference for participants in the International Law Course organized every year by the Inter American Judicial Committee titled: “Juridical, Political and Economic bases for a South American Integration Space,” proposed an Agreement Framework-between the Andean Community and MERCOSUR- to deepen trade integration, infrastructure development, financial cooperation, political cooperation and the economic and social development of both blocks as well as the adoption of joint positions in international negotiations and forums.

“The South American Community of Nations is called upon to be a powerful player on the international scene,” said Wagner. Regarding this point, and according to figures from the year 2003, the South American Community of Nations will have a population of 361 million inhabitants, an internal gross product of 973,613 million dollars and exports for 181,856 million dollars.

The General Secretary of the Andean Community also spoke of the need to inject energy into the Latin American Integration Association (ALADI) and the Latin American Economic System (SELA) and strengthen the Rio Group in their roles as regional organisms. The purpose of the aforementioned is to drive articulation between South America, Central America and Mexico, according to the Latin American integration focus determined by the Andean Presidents at the Quito Summit.

“In this sense, the Andean Summit for Development and the South American Summit celebrated in month of December in Cuzco will be transcendental to regional integration,” concluded Wagner.