CAF promotes V Conference on Trade and Investment in the Americas

The Andean Development Corporation (CAF) jointly with Inter-American Dialogue and the Organization of American States (OAS) organized the V Conference on Trade and Investment in the Americas to be held on September 6 in Washington DC.

The aim of this annual conference is to provide a platform for an in-depth analysis of the political, economic, trade and energy relations of the countries of the region with the United States. The event will be opened by the OAS secretary general, César Gaviria, the director of Inter-American Dialogue, Peter Hakim, and the executive president of the CAF, Enrique García.

High-level authorities from the countries of the region will participate, including ministers of finance and foreign trade, as well as government representatives and members of Congress from the United States, representatives of international organizations and Wall Street and academic experts on the region. The event has become an opportunity to review political and sustainable development issues in Latin America, a region that is experiencing difficulties and whose solutions require dynamic analysis.

Among the topics to be discussed are "Economic and Political Development in the Andean Community," with the participation of Gustavo Fernández Saavedra, foreign minister of Bolivia; Guillermo Perry, chief economist for Latin America of the World Bank; Lourdes Flórez Nano, ex-presidential candidate from Peru; and Genaro Arriagada of Fundación Chile XXI, among others. The moderator will be Michael Shifter of Inter-American Dialogue.

The members of the panel on "Evolution of U.S. Policy in the Andes" are Lino Gutiérrez from the State Department; Bernard Aronson of Acon Investments; Fernando Cepeda Ulloa, former Colombian minister. The moderator will be Karen De Young of the Washington Post.

In the session on "Economic Outlook for Latin America: a Commercial View," the speakers include Joyce Chang of JP Morgan, David Rothkopf of Intellibridge Corporation, and Everett Santos of Emerging Markets Partnership.

The lunchtime panel will be on "The Future of Integration in the Western Hemisphere," with presentations by Luiz Felipe Lampreia of the Center of International Relations of Brazil, and former foreign minister of that country, as well as Andrés Rozental of Rozental Asociados. Moisés Naím, editor of Foreign Policy will moderate the panel.

The speakers at the session on "Progress Toward the Free Trade Area of the Americas" will be José Alfredo Graca Lima, foreign minister of Brazil; Alicia Frohmann, foreign minister of Chile; Miguel Rodríguez Mendoza of the WTO; José Manuel Salazar of the OAS, and Jeffrey Schott from the Institute of International Economics.

For the last module on "Energy Policy in Latin America," the speakers will include Bill Richardson, former U.S. energy secretary; Carlos Salinas Estenssoro, vice minister of energy of Bolivia; Luis Giusti of the Center for Strategic and International Studies and José A Rojas, former minister of finance of Venezuela.

The closing session will be in the hands of Sebastián Alegrett, secretary general of the Andean Community; Enrique García; César Gaviria; Peter Hakim; Richard Moss Ferreira, minister of foreign trade of Ecuador, and Juan Manuel Santos, minister of finance and public credit of Colombia.

The sessions will be held in the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.