Uruguayan President José Mujica changed his mind and will attend Argentine President Cristina Fernández inauguration ceremony next Saturday, official sources confirmed.
Uruguay’s Vice-president Danilo Astori blasted Argentina’s protectionist and foreign exchange policies because they damage Mercosur, which is currently living its “worst possible moment”.
The US top Republican on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee said President Barack Obama is missing opportunities to strike closer ties with Brazil, allowing China to steal market share from US companies in Latin America’s biggest economy.
Chile and Uruguay are the least corrupt countries in Latinamerica, while Paraguay and Venezuela are at the other extreme, according to the latest ‘Corruption Perceptions’ Index’ from Transparency International released this week.
Combating the drugs and arms trade and traffic of people as well as a greater coordination of regional intelligence services are among the pillars in security affairs that Argentina, as chair of Mercosur in the first half of 2012 will be applying.
Uruguay’s president of the Chamber of Industries, (CIU) Washington Burghi said that relations with Mercosur partners are becoming ever so complicated and if these problems are not addressed “we will be in serious trouble because the whole world is going through tough situations”.
Agriculture ministers from Mercosur full members plus Chile and Bolivia, as members of the Agriculture Council of the South, CAS, urged a quick conclusion of the World Trade Organization Doha Round negotiations to help combat poverty and ensure food security.
It was to be a “complaints as usual day” plus the announcement Uruguay is poised for another year of record exports, close to 12 billion dollars. But the speaker contracted for the celebration of Exporter’s Day left the Uruguayan business audience and government officials quite surprised.
The Mexican president underlined the strategic importance of Uruguay since it is the only Mercosur member that has a free trade agreement with Mexico, thus making it the ‘strategic partner’ of Mexico in Mercosur.
Uruguayan president Jose Mujica said that Mercosur “is not moving forward or backwards” but is certainly working much better than the European Union where old experienced nations “made a mess of it”. Nevertheless, Uruguay will not stay put “licking its wounds”, it will look for other trade links.