CAN ministers to negotiate in the United States extension of tariff preferences

Monday, April 19. The ministers of trade and industry of the Andean Community (CAN) will start negotiating in Washington with U.S. government officials, to secure the renewal and broadening of the Andean Tariff Preferences Act (ATPA), as well as Venezuela's incorporation into that instrument.

The ATPA, approved by the U.S. Congress in 1991 to support the Andean countries in their war against drug trafficking, benefits most products coming from Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador and Peru through tariff reductions.

The Andean ministers will meet with U.S. Trade Representative Charlene Barshefsky and other high-level government officials, such as William Daley, Secretary of Trade of the United States; General Barry McCaffrey, Director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP), and Kenneth "Buddy" Mackay, Special Advisor to the While House for the Americas, among others.

They will also meet with Bill Archer, Chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, as well as Phil Crane, Chairman of the House Trade Subcommittee.

The efforts of the Andean ministerial representatives will be aimed at, in the first place, securing the extension of the preferences beyond the year 2001, considering that they are due to expire shortly (December 10, 2001) and this would be detrimental to the flow of trade between the two parties.

In the second, they will seek to include Venezuela among the beneficiaries of this act, inasmuch as this Andean Community member country is an important ally in the war against drug trafficking

In the third, the ministers will ask for the Andean countries' inclusion in the draft Caribbean Basin initiative, which envisages tariff preferences in garments and textiles for Central America and the Caribbean. In this way, Andean products would not become less competitive than those of other subregions in the Americas.

The Andean delegation will be headed by Marta Lucía Ramírez de Rincón, as Chairman of the CAN Commission, and will include Ministers Gustavo Márquez of Venezuela, César Luna Victoria and Alfredo Ferrero of Peru, and Jorge Crespo of Bolivia, as well as CAN Secretary General and Director, Sebastián Alegrett and Nicolás Lloreda.

It should be stressed here that the United States is the main trading partner of the Andean Community, which in turn is an important market for U.S. exports.

The CAN exported goods valued at approximately 18 billion dollars to the United States, while Andean imports from that country amounted to 15 billion 400 million dollars that same year.