USA and Andean Community analyze trade and investment relations

With CAF sponsorship, the General Secretariat of the Organization of American States (OAS) and the Inter-American Dialogue today began a two-day seminar in Washington, in which recognized authorities and specialists from the Andean Community and the United States will analyze their respective commercial and investment policies in order to identify opportunities and initiatives for greater and more rapid integration in the framework of the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA).

The event held in The Brookings Institution was attended by Venezuelan Foreign Minister Miguel Angel Burelli Rivas, and the ministers of Industry and Commerce of Bolivia, Jorge Crespo; Colombia, Carlos Ronderos; Ecuador, Benigno Sotomayor; Peru, Gustavo Caillaux; and Costa Rica, José Manual Salazar; a senior representative of the Brazilian foreign ministry; Canadian director general for trade negotiations, Kathryn MacCallion; and US negotiator for the FTAA, Peter Allgeier, senior representatives of the World Bank and Inter-American Development Bank, and other personalities.

The inaugural session began with remarks by OAS Secretary General César Gaviria, Peter Hakim of the Inter-American Dialogue, and CAF President & CEO Enrique García who referred to the new relaunch phase of the Andean Community and the scope of the negotiations with Mercosur on strengthening regional integration, whose objectives include the formation of the FTAA early next century.

The seminar, in which 150 guests are participating, will discuss the current state of hemispheric integration and the opening of a permanent space for dialogue between all actors, particularly between the Andean Community and the United States.

CAF – international financial institution which groups 11 countries of Latin America and the Caribbean – is interested in acting as catalyzing body for harmonizing existing positions on the hemispheric integration process.