NAFTA...now FTAA

Cohen · Oct 31, 2002

Been feeling left-out by the rapid growth of the EU?

Has anyone else heard much about the FTAA?

I've always felt that free trade was a natural evolution, so NAFTA and the EU were not big surprises, but I don't think that I've even heard of FTAA at all, yet it may be completed in 2005.

Facts:
34 nations in North, Central and South America, and the Caribbean;
population of 800 million;
a combined GDP of $11 trillion.

The FTAA would be the largest free-trade zone in the world.

Overview of the FTAA Process

The effort to unite the economies of the Western Hemisphere into a single free trade agreement began at the Summit of the Americas, which was held in December, 1994 in Miami. The Heads of State and Government of the 34 democracies in the region agreed to construct a Free Trade Area of the Americas, or FTAA, in which barriers to trade and investment will be progressively eliminated, and to complete negotiations for the agreement by 2005. The leaders also committed to achieve substantial progress toward building the FTAA by 2000. Their decisions are contained in the Miami Summit's Declaration of Principles and Plan of Action.

Four ministerial meetings took place during the preparatory phase of the FTAA process: the first was in June 1995 in Denver, USA, the second in March 1996 in Cartagena, Colombia, the third in May 1997 in Belo Horizonte, Brazil and the fourth in March 1998 in San José, Costa Rica. At their meeting in San José, Ministers recommended to their Heads of State and Government the initiation of negotiations and set out the structure and general principles and objectives to guide the negotiations. On the basis of the San José Declaration, the FTAA negotiations were launched formally in April 1998, at the Second Summit of the Americas in Santiago, Chile. The leaders agreed that the FTAA negotiating process be transparent and take into account the differences in the levels of development and size of the economies in the Americas, in order to facilitate full participation by all countries.

The fifth Ministerial meeting – the first since negotiations were formally initiated —took place in Toronto in November 1999. At this meeting, Ministers instructed the Negotiating Groups to prepare a draft text of their respective chapters, to be presented at the sixth Ministerial meeting in Buenos Aires in April 2001. Groups responsible for market access issues were directed to discuss the modalities and procedures for negotiations in their respective areas. Ministers also approved several business facilitation measures, designed to facilitate commercial exchange in the Hemisphere, particularly in the area of customs procedures.

At the sixth Ministerial meeting, held in Buenos Aires, and at the Third Summit of the Americas held in Quebec City in April 2001, a number of key decisions were made regarding the FTAA negotiations. Ministers received from the Negotiating Groups a draft text of the FTAA Agreement, and, in an unprecedented move designed to increase the transparency of the process, recommended to their heads of State and Government to make this text publicly available. The draft FTAA agreement was made available to the public in all four official languages on July 3, 2001. Ministers also highlighted the need to foster dialogue with Civil Society, and the summaries of the second round of Civil Society submissions in response to the open invitation were agreed to be placed on the FTAA Website. Ministers reiterated the importance of the provision of technical assistance to smaller economies to facilitate their participation in the FTAA.

Deadlines were fixed for the conclusion and implementation of the FTAA Agreement. Negotiations are to be concluded no later than January 2005; entry into force will be sought as soon as possible thereafter, no later than December, 2005.
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http://www.ftaa-alca.org/alca_e.asp

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NAFTA...now FTAA

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