MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Peru optimistic about ratification of FTA with the US

Peru's Ministry of Foreign Trade and Tourism Mercedes Araoz announced that preliminary amendments to the United States-Peru Free Trade Agreement will be ready sometime next week enabling its ratification by the US Congress.

US Congress reached a bipartisan agreement to green light the U.S.-Peru FTA ratification process and as part of the deal U.S. Trade officials and Peru's Ministry of Foreign Trade will negotiate amendments to the treaty, rather than renegotiating the entire agreement, which Peru strongly opposes because its congress has already approved the deal. Peru has been strongly lobbying for the ratification of the FTA including a visit to the White House by president Alan Garcia and meetings with influential Congress leaders. Ms Araoz who spent several days in Washington said the US Trade Representative's Office will have the preliminary amendments ready by next week. "During our conversation Thursday, United States Trade Representative Susan Schwab indicated that in light of the agreements reached by the U.S. Congress, her agency will begin to prepare the initial amendments which will be sent to us (Peru) sometime next week," said Araoz to state run television station TV Peru. Once the amendments arrive in Peru, her ministry will then send a negotiation team to the U.S. to collaborate with USTR officials on fine tuning the accords before they are sent to each country's congress. Although Ms Araoz would not comment on the nature of the amendments, it is widely speculated that they will deal with issues concerning labor, intellectual property rights, and the environment in line with the agreement reached between the White House and the Democrat dominated US Congress. "We don't know much more than what was reported in the media. We have an idea of what they (the amendments) may include, but again, we do not have details" insisted Araoz.