MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Uruguay will enjoy “positive discrimination” in bilateral trade with Argentina

Cristina Fernandez and president Mujica at the Olivos residence for another round of talks

Argentina and Uruguay presidents Cristina Fernandez and Jose Mujica agreed Monday evening to discuss their trade differences in the framework of Mercosur and promote “positive discrimination” measures for Uruguayan exports to help compensate the restrictions imported to all imports by the Argentine government.

Following the unexpected trip to Buenos Aires by President Mujica following the usual Monday ministerial cabinet meeting, sources said that the measures will be implemented “in the framework of Mercosur, in the framework of procedures for asymmetries with small countries, and as an element of positive discrimination which means a preference for the Uruguayan economy in the measures imposed by Argentina”.

Deputy Economy Secretary Luis Porto said that although the presidential meeting Monday afternoon in the Argentine president residence of Olivos came as a surprise, “it really had been scheduled with anticipation”.

Porto travelled with Mujica to meet Cristina Fernandez Monday early afternoon, but the Argentine government only confirmed the event two hours later.

While the Argentine government said that the meeting was to address “bilateral issues with an open agenda” in Montevideo the Mujica administration released an official communiqué saying that restrictions to imports by Argentina, “also impact Uruguay and it is essential to find some solution or mechanism which will allow those effects not to be that important for Uruguay or that at least they offer to entrepreneurs and workers a certain anticipation, with respect to their production capacities and jobs”.

“It was dialogue and not a meeting for an agreement, but with the purpose of discussing possible solution mechanisms and begin to work on them” said Uruguayan sources adding that in coming days some mechanisms with be technically adjusted so that small Mercosur economies such as the Uruguayan, “have a preferential treatment vis-à-vis the measures which are been implemented by Argentina”.