MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Brazil confirms FTAA on deadline target

Progress was made at last week's Free Trade Association of the Americas, (FTAA), meeting in Mexico making the trade agreement 2005 deadline “more realistic”, said a Brazilian Foreign Ministry official this Thursday.

"There's no reason to be concerned about the 2005 deadline," Tovar da Silva Nunes, head of the Foreign Affairs Ministry division negotiating the FTAA. However Mr. da Silva Nunes' statements contradicted media reports indicating that delegates from the 34 countries involved in the crucial talks had "reached a stalemate".

Deputy Trade ministers from the 34 nations of the Americas (with the exception of Cuba) met in Puebla, Mexico, in an effort to clear the road towards implementation of the 2005 target.

Mr. da Silva Nunes said the Puebla meeting was called basically to discuss four issues including public opinion access to information on the agreement and citizens' participation in the process to create the FTAA. Apparently these two issues and a system of mechanisms to ensure less developed countries are not overrun by richer nations in the region were approved.

Another contentious area also found limited difficulties and was affirmative, that is taking potential trade conflicts within the FTAA, under certain circumstances, to multilateral forums, such as the World Trade Organization (WTO).

A stumbling block was rights and obligations of FTAA member countries. Differences arose regarding the elimination by the US of farm subsidies, and South and Central America opening up their capital markets and telecommunications sectors. "But we reached agreements on 80% of the issues discussed", underlined the Brazilian official.

And why the Puebla meeting did not draft a closing document and preferred to postpone the matter "until the last two weeks of March", Mr. da Silva Nunes was also optimistic highlighting "this is a normal consequence of the negotiation process"

.Mr. da Silva Nunes also flatly rejected the idea that Brazil was interested in delaying the FTTA deadline.

"Brazil only proposed some changes in the negotiating process and in the content of the agreements. Delays, postponements are out of the question".