In a strong display of support for Paraguayan president-elect Horacio Cartes, European Union ambassadors confirmed the leader will be travelling next week to Brussels, seat of the EU in what will be his first contacts out of the region.
Paraguay president-elect Horacio Cartes ratified he will not be attending the coming Mercosur summit scheduled to take place July 12 in Montevideo, confirmed one of his foreign policy advisors since the Paraguayan position remains that “Venezuela is not a full member of Mercosur because the Paraguayan congress by overwhelming majority rejected such option in August 2012”.
President Barack Obama has named Lilian Ayalde a career diplomat with a long experience in international cooperation and former ambassador to Paraguay as the next ambassador to Brazil it was announced by the White House.
Venezuela “is not part of Mercosur, it was not ratified by the Paraguayan congress” according to one of the main foreign policy advisors of president elect Horacio Cartes who is scheduled to take office next August 15. Meanwhile Paraguay continues to advance it its intention of belonging to the Alliance of the Pacific.
Technical groups from Paraguay and Mexico advanced on Wednesday talks for the creation of an Economic complementation Accord in the framework of the Latam Integration Association, ALADI, which is considered the “step previous to a full free trade treaty”, reported from Asuncion Paraguay’s foreign ministry.
The next Mercosur summit scheduled for the end of June in Montevideo has been delayed until 12 July, announced Uruguayan Foreign minister Luis Almagro. The new date was agreed by Argentina, Brazil, Uruguay and Venezuela earlier this week.
Soybeans, electricity and beef figure as the main export items of landlocked Paraguay, during the first five months of the year. According to a release from the Ministry of Industry and Trade, exports at the end of May reached 4,12bn dollars compared to 2.96bn a year ago, which represents a 57.3% increase.
Paraguay will host the next Organization of American States, OAS, General Assembly scheduled for June 3 to 5 of 2014 in Asuncion. The decision by acclamation was taken on Thursday at the end of this year’s event in Guatemala.
Consumer prices in Paraguay dropped 0.3% during May which brings the accumulated five month inflation to 0.2%, reported the Central bank. The percentage is considerably lower than May a year ago when it reached 0.4% and had accumulated 3.2%. Twelve month inflation in May reached 0.9% which compares favourably with the 3.8% of a year ago
Paraguayan Foreign minister Jose Fernandez Estigarribia said on Monday that so far Asuncion has not received any invitation from Mercosur to attend the coming summit at the end of June, and there haven’t been any talks about the issue. Last week the Argentine ambassador in Uruguay Dante Dovena had anticipated that Paraguay would be attending the Mercosur summit.