Brasília, November 17, 2003 (Agência Brasil - ABr) - Beginning today, Ministers, entrepreneurs, observers, and activists from 34 Western Hemisphere countries - with the exception of Cuba - are watching what is happening in Miami, where the final series of negotiations to establish the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA) is getting underway. Brazil and the United States are co-presidents in this phase, which, according to the timetable, should lead to the formalization of the bloc in 2005.
The VIII FTAA Ministerial Meeting, which begins on Wednesday (19), will be preceded by the XVI Meeting of the Trade Negotiations Committee (TNC), in which only technical experts participate. Two blocs of interests, represented by Brazil and the United States, clearly exist.
On one side is the proposal presented by the United States, which is pressing for the opening of areas such as chemicals, informatics, technological development, intellectual property, and access to markets for government purchases. Brazil, on the other side, asks for a counterpart in the opening of certain sectors of the American market, especially in agriculture, in which Brazil's strength is greatest.
The Minister of Foreign Relations, Celso Amorim, continues to be optimistic about the Brazilian proposal to provide the agreement greater flexibility, with each country able to negotiate, bilaterally, the questions it considers most advantageous. According to Amorim, the idea was well received by the US Trade Representative, Robert Zoellick, at a meeting they held two weeks ago. "I was encouraged by the conversations, because our element of flexibility was understood. The FTAA can be broad, so long as it is not balanced only towards one side," the Minister said.
The official Brazilian delegation - which will include Ministers Luiz Fernando Furlan (Development), Roberto Rodrigues (Agriculture), and Celso Amorim (Foreign Relations) - will have a group of observers from the entrepreneurial sector. The observers, who are rooting for the creation of an FTAA that does not hurt Brazilian economic development, wish to accompany closely the formulation of the Final Declaration of Miami. "The Brazilian position has to be cautious, so as not to expose many strategic flanks harmful to the evolution of a restoration of development able to compete and damaging to Brazilian industry," argued Osvaldo Douat, president of the Entrepreneurial Coalition, the branch of the National Confederation of Industry (CNI) in charge of accompanying Brazil's trade negotiations with other countries and economic blocs.
ANOTHER FTAA
Another group of Brazilians will accompany the Ministerial meeting, but on the outside of the Intercontinental Hotel, headquarters of the event. Representatives of the Continental Social Alliance, such as economist Marcos Arruda and union leader Maria Lúcia Satorelli, will wave the Brazilian flag to call for "another possible FTAA."
The activitists will share Chopin Square with American producers of citric fruits who demand that the United States adopt a protectionist stance to prevent the country from being invaded by Brazilian oranges. (DAS)
