MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Alliance of the Pacific promotes meeting with business and finance global leaders

The four Pacific countries presidents during their last meeting (Photo: AP)

A meeting of leading world and regional business and finance corporations representatives is scheduled parallel to the Alliance of the Pacific presidential summit scheduled for this week in the Colombia city of Cali. According to the organizers the event has 250 CEO confirmed for the First Business meeting of the alliance.

“The businesspeople will have the opportunity to meet with heads of state, of government, ministers and regional officials to talk about investments, trade, business opportunities” in the four countries full members that make up the alliance: Mexico, Colombia, Peru and Chile said the organizers.

It is also scheduled that officials from some of the countries that are already registered as Alliance of the Pacific observers, will attend and will be available to talk about trade and investment. The countries with observer status include Japan, New Zealand, Australia, Spain, Canada, Guatemala, Costa Rica, Panama and Uruguay.

Paraguay has requested observer status and will most probably be accepted during the summit which on Wednesday will see the chair of the alliance pass from Chile to Colombia.

Another of the events is organized by The Economist Intelligence Unit, belonging to the Economist Group, which will debate on “International Economic Prospects”.

The Alliance of the Pacific is a mechanism for economic and trade integration which includes Chile, Colombia, Peru and Mexico that was formally launched on 6 June 2012. The goal of the alliance is to gradually cut tariffs and progressively achieve the free circulation of goods, services, capitals and peoples.

The alliance is also considering becoming a platform of political articulation, economic and trade integration with a global projection particularly in the Pacific basin and Asia.

The four countries with a population of 206 million represent 38% of Latinamerica’s GDP, and in 2010 exported 445 billion dollars which is considerably higher than the main South American block, Mercosur. The four countries taken together could become the ninth economy of the world.