Andean countries have community safeguard mechanism in place for the first time

Lima, Apr 13 99. For the first time, starting tomorrow, April 14, the Andean Community (CAN) countries will have in place a provision for the application of Community safeguard measures to imports from third countries that threaten to seriously damage production and trade within the Subregion or effectively do so.

The measure was adopted last night by the CAN Commission through Decision 452, which will enter into effect tomorrow with its publication in the Official Gazette of the Cartagena Agreement.

The Community provision, unlike the national safeguards applied thus far by the Andean countries, will not only protect national markets and local products, but also the enlarged Subregional market and the products of its member countries.

The new provision is in conformity with the World Trade Organization (WTO) Agreement on Safeguards. Therefore, as Colombian Foreign Trade Minister and CAN Commission Chairman Marta Lucía Ramírez de Rincón stated, "it is not a protectionist measure and exists in all integration processes."

After explaining that the measure is a temporary one, the Minister went on to add that its adoption will make it possible to "react promptly to atypical situations that arise in international trade and that have become increasingly commonplace during recent months due to the worldwide and regional economic crisis."

CAN Secretary General Sebastián Alegrett had the following to say in this regard: the Community safeguard "is the appropriate instrument for responding to external shocks, without thereby leading to a situation of neoprotectionism."

Peruvian Minister of Industy, Integration and International Trade Negotiations César Luna Victoria, for his part, stated that "this mechanism will make it possible to avoid a spiral of unilateral measures that could destroy legality at the Community level".