South American countries, particularly Mercosur members remain as top priority of Brazil’s foreign policy confirmed this week President Dilma Rousseff.
Argentina's footwear industry hopes to make 200 million pairs and export 50 million shoes as part of new strategic growth plan by 2020, according to officials at leading trade federation Camara de la Industria del Calzado (CIC).
Mercosur will consider next June adopting a regional joint program to combat the mosquito transmitted dengue disease, which has become endemic in the group with the exception of Uruguay, and which has forced landlocked Paraguay to declare a national emergency.
Several Mercosur negotiations with other blocks have failed because “they ask too much and offer too little” said Samuel Pinheiro recently appointed Mercosur High Representative and who is holding a round of meetings with member countries’ leaders.
Latin America and the Caribbean have weathered the 2008-2009 recession much better than it had previous downturns. However less well-known is that the region, particularly Mercosur members, also decisively outperformed many other regions during the same period with a decline in growth smaller than that of the middle-income country average and with a rebound that was swifter and stronger.
Venezuela in Mercosur will act as a balancing element and Unasur has more than proven its merits, said Paraguay’s new Foreign Affairs minister Jorge Lara Castro who insisted the country must work urgently to overcome asymmetries in the region and passive integration is not enough.
The European Union and Mercosur currently holding a round of association and trade talks will be exchanging proposals for market access of their list of products in the coming two months, according to the EU Trade Commissioner Karel De Gucht.
Beginning June, Mercosur full members will share macro-economic indicators elaborated with the same criteria and which will be released simultaneously, according to reports in the Montevideo press. The initiative was partly financed by the European Union that also played an advisory role.
The Eurogroup for Animals called on the European Union to demand from Mercosur farmers associations and governments the same ‘animal well-being’ requisites and regulations which their European counterparts must comply with.
Several European Union objections to the current functioning of Mercosur have surfaced in documents relative to the ongoing trade negotiations round which is scheduled to have another chapter early May in Asunción, Paraguay.