Lima, March 30, 2005.- The Andean Community adopted a Work Plan to deepen trade integration in the subregion at the meeting of the CAN Commission held this Monday and Tuesday in Lima, with the participation of Ministers and Vice-Ministers of Foreign Trade of the five Andean countries and the Secretary General of the Andean organization.

The aim of the plan --as pointed out at the meeting-- is to “ensure the existence of an attractive enlarged market in which goods and services move about freely and goods from third countries are given uniform treatment.”

A result of the mandate handed down by the Andean Presidents at the Quito Summit last July, this is the most important trade integration program to be agreed upon by the CAN in the last ten years.

The Work Plan is broken down into five areas of action: Free movement of goods and services, customs union, strengthening of the legal and institutional systems, joint productive investment and development plan and a program of support for Bolivia and collaboration with Ecuador. The agreed actions in each area will be carried out for the most part by December 2005 at the latest.

The actions planned in the area of free movement of goods and services, whose objective is to bring about the unimpeded movement of goods among the five countries as if they were a single market, include regulating intra-Community safeguards, completing the Andean customs legislation agenda, harmonizing sanitary and phytosanitary requirements, adopting Community legislation on basic principles of public procurement, and resolving international highway transportation problems, among other things.

Insofar as the customs union is concerned, it was agreed, in order to give similar treatment to products from third countries, to remove or redefine the safeguard against products from third countries, evaluate the agricultural price stabilization system and the Andean motor vehicle agreement and make a decision on the CET, as well as to work toward a joint evaluation with the EU, coordinated Andean positions for WTO negotiations and the exploration of negotiations with Central America, the EFTA, Russia and the Asia-Pacific area, among other actions.

The strengthening of the legal and institutional systems involves perfecting the Andean dispute settlement system and making the management of the integration process more dynamic. The planned actions include: reviewing Andean treaties and legislation that are difficult to implement and, with the assistance of the General Secretariat, having the Member Countries remedy their failures of compliance.

The actions foreseen with respect to the joint productive investment and development plan, whose objective is to boost Subregional development with social inclusion, are, among others, to create the Andean Guarantee System, adopt Andean Rules for Small and Medium Enterprises, foster Andean city-regions and border integration, and work together to promote exports and to set up joint commercial offices abroad.

The support programs for Bolivia and Ecuador, which are aimed at allowing Member Countries to benefit equally from the integration process and at resolving imbalances, include meetings among Andean Members to resolve problems of access to the Andean market by products of interest to Bolivia and the implementation of a special program to reinforce Bolivia’s participation in the Andean and South American integration processes and of a program of collaboration with Ecuador, particularly with regard to removing obstacles to trade, competitiveness, small and medium enterprises and international trade negotiations, among other things.