Paraguayan president Fernando Lugo called for the free flow and free access of his country’s goods to Mercosur senior members’ markets and insisted on the energy integration of the block.
Mercosur signed a free trade agreement with the Palestinian Authority on Tuesday, the first between the territories and a block of nations outside the Arab world. The ceremony took place during Mercosur presidential summit in Montevideo.
Trade among ALADI, Latin American Integration Association, which includes all the hemisphere countries with the exception of a few from Central America and the Caribbean, is expected to reach a historic record in 2011 close to 160 billion dollars, ahead of the 2008 record with 146 billion dollars.
The Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) will hold its Annual Meeting in Montevideo, Uruguay March 16-19, drawing top economic decision-makers from its 48 member countries, including finance ministers and central bank presidents.
Argentina supported by Brazil has proposed increasing Mercosur Foreign External Tariff to better defend the group when country members are being flooded with cheap imports.
Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez said he will travel on Tuesday to the Mercosur summit in Uruguay in his first official foreign trip since undergoing cancer surgery in June and a further sign he is feeling stronger.
President Barack Obama has accused the government of Venezuela of threatening basic democratic values ahead of elections next year. He added that close relations with Iran and Cuba did not serve the interests of the Venezuelan people.
A two day Mercosur summit begins Monday in Montevideo with Foreign Affairs ministers meeting Monday and the presidents on Tuesday when the rotating chair will be passed from Uruguay to Argentina for the next six month.
The Uruguayan central bank “Monetary Policy Committee” will attempt to balance ‘concern’ over inflation with the increasing international uncertainty when it meets next 29 December, said the bank’s president Mario Bergara.
Uruguay is the best place to live in Latin America according to the Legatum Institute fourth year index on quality of life conditions which ranks 110 countries world wide representing 90% of world population and 97% of the global economy.