MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

The Mercosur-Singapore trade agreement reaches Argentina's Congress

The request carried signatures from nine groups, among them PRO, the Unión Cívica Radical, Provincias Unidas, Innovación Federal, Por Santa Cruz, La Neuquinidad and Adelante Buenos Aires

Argentina's Chamber of Deputies will on Wednesday take up ratification of the free trade agreement between Mercosur and Singapore, signed in December 2023 and still awaiting parliamentary approval. It is the first trade treaty the bloc has concluded with a Southeast Asian country.

The text appears on the agenda of a special session called for midday by La Libertad Avanza bloc leader Gabriel Bornoroni, alongside a reform of the central bank's charter and an expansion of the scheme for regularising undeclared assets. The request carried signatures from nine parliamentary groups, among them PRO, the Unión Cívica Radical, Provincias Unidas, Innovación Federal, Por Santa Cruz, La Neuquinidad and Adelante Buenos Aires, suggesting sufficient backing to secure approval in the lower house.

The Singapore agreement was negotiated over several years and signed under Brazil's pro tempore presidency of Mercosur. It requires ratification by the parliaments of all four member states — Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay — to enter into force.

The same agenda includes Argentina's accession to the Patent Cooperation Treaty, an instrument administered by the World Intellectual Property Organization that allows protection for an invention to be sought simultaneously in multiple jurisdictions through a single filing. Argentina is one of the few countries in the region not yet part of the system.

The session also covers a series of domestic measures: a reduction in the value added tax rate on cassava starch, promoted by lawmakers from Misiones province; the creation of additional chambers in the federal appeals courts of Tucumán and Mar del Plata; and a dozen bills designating various towns as national capitals of different productive and cultural sectors.

Consideration of the Singapore agreement comes at a moment of tension within the bloc. Brazil on August 4 downgraded its diplomatic relations with Argentina to chargé d'affaires level, after President Javier Milei took part in a campaign event for Brazilian presidential candidate Flávio Bolsonaro at which he referred to Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva in terms Brasília considered offensive. Paraguayan President Santiago Peña said on August 14 that the differences between the two leaders had not affected how Mercosur functions.

The bloc, made up of Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay, also has Bolivia's full accession process under way. Brazil's presidential elections on October 4 are the next political milestone bearing on the regional agenda.