Lima, March 30, 2007.- The four Andean Community Member Countries, by defining the starting point for tariff reduction (SPTR) –base tariff, took a key step toward the launching of negotiations with the European Union for an Association Agreement between the two blocs and reached an accord on a large number, equivalent to 75 percent, of the total tariff items and of their total trade with Europe.   

The Andean Community General Secretariat yesterday sent the Progress Report on matters concerning the starting point for tariff reduction, customs, land transportation and trade in services to Tomás Duplá de Moral, Director for Latin America of the European Commission’s Directorate-General of Foreign Affairs.

In emphasizing this important accomplishment, the Secretary General of the Andean Community, Freddy Ehlers, stated that the definition of the SPTR has brought about the longstanding aspiration of the Andean countries to jointly negotiate the trade aspects of the future CAN-EU Association Agreement, which --he recalled-- rests on three pillars: political, cooperation and trade. 

He reported that the Representatives of the Andean countries to the CAN Commission had made an intensive effort that concluded yesterday with a videoconference, to reach an agreement on a common base level, revealing their strong desire to move toward an Association Agreement.  "We feel certain that the European Union will take this effort into account,” he stressed.    

The SPTR is the reference base tariff established to facilitate negotiations between the CAN and the EU and, because it is referential, it does not determine the tariff levels to be applied to the EU either before or during the negotiations.  "The tariff levels that will be applied to the EU once the negotiations have concluded will be the levels that are determined as a result of those negotiations,” it was explained.

The Report sent yesterday to the European Commission also describes the progress that has been made with regard to customs, transportation and trade in services.  In the case of Customs, advances were made toward approving a set of Community customs provisions, leaving only those referring to customs regimes and customs offenses to be dealt with.  As regards transportation, the Decision on international highway transportation of goods is being perfected in order to introduce a series of improvements that will facilitate this service. 

With reference to services, the determination of service sectors where decontrol or the harmonization of regulations is to be deepened and whose definition had been pending since June 2006 concluded the process of perfecting the decontrol of trade in services among the Andean countries.