News Story: Pacific Alliance to open trade talks with four countries

SANTIAGO, July 12 (Xinhua) -- Latin American trade bloc Pacific Alliance (AP) will begin formal negotiations in September towards a trade agreement with Australia, Canada, New Zealand and Singapore, officials announced on Wednesday.

Paulina Nazal, head of International Economic Relations at the Foreign Affairs Ministry of Chile, one of the bloc's four founding members, said the AP's negotiating team will first gather in Lima, Peru between Sept. 3 and 4.

Alliance members Mexico, Colombia, Peru and Chile hope to quickly wrap up trade talks with the four countries, which currently have associated state status, she said.

To that end, "the chief negotiators will meet with the legal advisers of the eight countries to agree on the terms of the negotiations," said Nazal.

"There is great interest in concluding these negotiations, or in announcing the terms of the negotiations, ideally by the opening of the next Pacific Alliance summit, which is going to be in the middle of the year," added Nazal.

While there are existing trade agreements between the eight states, the new talks hope to expand those accords within the framework of the AP.

Read the full story at Xinhua

News Story: Expert says Pacific Alliance to serve as LatAm's tool to expand trade integration with Asia

by Carlos Acat

LIMA, June 29 (Xinhua) -- The Pacific Alliance, a Latin American trade bloc founded by Chile, Colombia, Mexico and Peru in 2011, stands to outperform its regional counterparts and contribute to the continent's closer ties with Asia, Peruvian economist Carlos Aquino has said.

Acquino, an Asia expert and director of the Economic Research Institute at the National University of San Marcos in Lima, told Xinhua in a recent interview that the strength of the Pacific Alliance (AP) lies in the fact that its members not only share a common goal, but also are fundamentally similar.

The AP is holding its 12th meeting in Cali, Colombia, Thursday through Friday.

"Of all the Latin American integration blocs, such as the Community of Andean Nations (CAN) or the Southern Common Market (Mercosur), it's the one that can succeed the most, because it is a homogeneous group of representative democracies with market economies and an interest in Asia," he said.

According to Aquino, the four nations within the AP have already established free trade between each other, and 92 percent of the goods trade are duty free. "The remainder will be liberalized in 15 years at the latest," he added.

The main weakness of the bloc -- which has 52 observer countries, including China -- is that it is fairly new, the expert said, adding that insufficient transport and communication infrastructure has hindered intra-bloc flow of people as well as trade ties with Asia.

"Here, China can help," said Aquino, who pointed out that Chinese investment, the extension of the Belt and Road Initiative into Latin America, as well as increased air routes and e-commerce platforms are all needed to help local companies connect with Asia.

Read the full story at Xinhua

Related Stories:

• Australia launches free trade negotiations with Pacific Alliance
• Peru hails new associated countries with Pacific Alliance

News Story: Seminar seeks to tighten ASEAN-Pacific Alliance linkages

Hanoi (VNA) – A seminar was held in Hanoi on May 22 to discuss ways to support Vietnam’s role as coordinator of ASEAN’s relations with the Pacific Alliance (PA), thus strengthening cooperative ties between the two blocs and between Vietnam and the PA.

The event was part of the PA Week in Hanoi from May 22-28, with a range of activities such as gastronomy, a film festival and a photo and product exhibition.

The seminar was attended by senior officials of Vietnam and PA members, including Chile, Colombia, Mexico and Peru, along with representatives of 49 embassies and Vietnamese firms, which are interested in Latin American markets.

In his opening speech, Secretary-General of the Pacific Economic Cooperation Council (PECC) Eduardo Pedrosa highlighted the goals of the PA, including building a deeply integrated region; promoting growth, development and competitiveness of the member economies; and forming a forum on political cooperation as well as economic and trade integration.

Read the full story at VietnamPlus

News Story: ASEAN, Pacific Alliance forge stronger ties

Jakarta (VNA) – The ASEAN Committee of Permanent Representatives and the Pacific Alliance (PA)’s Group of External Relations met in Jakarta, Indonesia on May 5, to review the ASEAN-PA relations over the past years and seeking important measures to promote cooperation between the two sides in the future.

The event, the third of its kind, was co-chaired by Ambassador Nguyen Hoanh Nam, head of the Vietnamese delegation to the ASEAN, and Pablo Uria, head of the Bilateral Economic Relations Department of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Chile.

Addressing the event, Ambassador Nguyen Hoanh Nam lauded the growing ties between the two organizations as well as PA’s commitments in strengthening relations with ASEAN and the region.

As the coordinator of the ASEAN-PA relations for 2017, Vietnam will exert every effort to bolster affiliation between the two sides, he pledged.

Specifically, in order to effectively implement the ASEAN-PA Framework for Cooperation, the diplomat proposed increasing communications to popularize the content of the document to relevant agencies of both sides, thus encouraging them to join relevant activities and measures.

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News Story: Negotiators fail to present concrete path to U.S.-less TPP

TORONTO -- Top negotiators from the 11 countries participating in the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) free trade pact wrapped up a two-day meeting here on May 3, after reaching an agreement to continue negotiations over the accord despite the pullout of the United States.

However, negotiators failed to present a concrete road map toward implementing the TPP, as the signatory nations have different motivations for participating in the far-reaching pact. Topics for discussions were pushed forward to a ministerial meeting to be held in Vietnam later this month.

On Day 2 of the meeting, negotiators were engaged in full-scale discussions on a path to bringing the TPP into effect. After the meeting, Japan's chief TPP negotiator Keiichi Katakami, deputy minister for foreign affairs, told reporters, "Participating countries shared the feeling that we needed to move the discussion forward so we didn't lose momentum as we weighed the significance of the TPP."

A negotiator from a country enthusiastic about early TPP implementation also lauded the conference, saying, "It was a very successful meeting."

However, participating countries face domestic skepticism about the efficacy of the pact, which they had joined expecting greater access to the world's largest market: the United States. How to dispel such reservations was also a subject of debate, but negotiators failed to find a breakthrough and wrapped up the meeting nearly three hours earlier than scheduled.

Read the full story at The Mainichi

News Story: China to attend Chile meeting on Asia-Pacific economic integration

BEIJING, March 13 (Xinhua) -- China will send Yin Hengmin, its special representative on Latin American affairs, to attend the upcoming Chile meeting on Asia-Pacific economic integration, said a Foreign Ministry spokesperson on Monday.

"The meeting is a high-profile one on the subject of Asia-Pacific regional economic integration by Latin America's four-member Pacific Alliance and Asia-Pacific countries," spokesperson Hua Chunying said at a routine press briefing.

China hopes the meeting will contribute to boosting the Asia-Pacific FTA and regional economic integration and creating an open economy, she said. 

Read the full story at Xinhua

News Story: Pacific Alliance eager to cooperate with RCEP, says Peru president

LIMA, March 10 (Xinhua) -- Peruvian President Pedro Pablo Kuczynski said on Thursday night that the Pacific Alliance (Chile, Colombia, Mexico and Peru; PA) were eager for the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) free-trade deal to become a reality.

In a press conference, Kuczynski told Xinhua that Peru was keen to join the RCEP, either alone or with its Pacific Alliance partners.

"We have a free-trade agreement (FTA) with China, and we have separate agreements with South Korea, Japan, Thailand and Singapore. We will try to broaden this with an effort through the Alliance. However, not all countries within the Alliance have the same agreements...In the Cali Summit, in two months, we will see how we face this. Obviously, we would prefer to do this through the Alliance," said the president.

Read the full story at Xinhua

News Story: New Zealand pushes TPP without US

Hanoi (VNA) – New Zealand Trade Minister Todd McClay called on the 11 remaining member countries of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) agreement to discuss the next step for the trade deal after the US pulled out.

The New Zealand trade chief made the statement in Tokyo on February 8 during his visit to Japan to hear the views of other TPP members regarding the future of the pact.

During an interview with Japan’s Kyodo News in Tokyo, he said a meeting of ministers from the TPP member countries could take place in Chile in March, adding that "It's too soon for us to give up on that achievement after nine years of negotiation," describing the deal as a "high quality" agreement.

According to McClay, there are a range of views among the countries but one option could be going ahead with the trade deal even without the US.

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News Story: Pacific Alliance boosts cooperation with ASEAN

Hanoi (VNA) – Forging partnership with ASEAN is among priorities of the Pacific Alliance amid global integration, as heard at the bloc’s summit in Bogota, Colombia, on December 15.

At the meeting, trade and foreign deputy ministers from four Pacific Alliance members – Mexico, Chile, Colombia and Peru – discussed measures to implement cooperation with ASEAN in line with the ASEAN-Pacific Alliance Framework for Cooperation signed in New York in late September.

They also acknowledged progress made by the bloc in diplomacy and business management and agreed to stimulate ties with observer states and partners in the region. 

Read the full story at VietnamPlus