The omicron variant disrupted negotiations and face-to-face meetings with Mexico and the United States.
For the first month of 2022, several actions related to the country’s foreign trade are envisaged, among which are the presentation of a bill for the Promotion of Investments, the resumption of face-to-face negotiations for a trade agreement with Mexico, the meeting of Trade and Investment Council between Ecuador and the United States in search of a second phase agreement, among others.
This was highlighted this Wednesday, during a radio interview, Julio Jose Prado, Minister of Production, Foreign Trade, Investment and Fisheries, who assured that by the end of this month it will be delivered to the President of the Republic, Guillermo Lasso, the project of Investment Promotion Law, in which the State portfolio has worked in the last months of 2021 and whose basis was the Creando Oportunidades project.
Prado explained that the project contains two bodies. The first is related to the issues of public-private alliances, where they have carried out reforms so that the Secretariat of Public-Private Alliances, in coordination with the Ministry and the Vice Ministry of Investments, have all the facilities to attract more investments towards public projects. .
Government prepares Investment Promotion Law that it will send to the Assembly (and other news in a summary to start the day)
“We have a catalog of a large number of projects available to investors that require some legal reforms to be faster and more interesting for local and international investment,” said Prado.
Meanwhile, the second body of the project contains reforms to the Free Zones Law.
“We believe that one of Ecuador’s capacity to attract investment in a massive way is to generate a new free zone scheme; more modern, more open and with a very important condition: that investment or the creation of a free zone does not depend on the will of a bureaucrat or the politician on duty; and that they are only paper free zones, but that they are living free zones that have an economic project, a business loan behind them, ”explained Minister Prado, who revealed that they have taken as a basis the best practices of the free zones of Uruguay, Colombia and Costa Rica.
Regarding the meeting with the Trade and Investment Council (TIC) scheduled for this month, Prado revealed that the United States Department of Foreign Trade requested on Tuesday that the appointment be postponed for two weeks due to the omicron variant.
⭕️ The minister @prads reported in @KCH_FM: “In 2 weeks a delegation from the Vice Ministry of Foreign Trade will travel to Mexico ???????? to advance, in person, in the last negotiating tables.” This will allow us to continue with the strategy to adhere to @A_delPacifico. pic.twitter.com/2FHdTekcg3
– Ministry of Production (@Produccion_Ecu) January 5, 2022
However, Prado confirmed that the meeting will be in Ecuador. “There is not going to be a change that we have to travel to Washington. We believed that it is very important that it be here to show progress and that they also see our predisposition, with which this committee is going to take place; it has simply been delayed, perhaps a couple of weeks, ”said the minister.
Another negotiation process that the omicron variant upset was that of the trade agreement with Mexico, which was scheduled to close at the end of 2021.
Prado pointed out that due to the omicron variant, several of the planned face-to-face negotiations were closed. One of them, which was agreed between him and the Minister of Commerce and Economy of Mexico in a forum of the World Trade Organization (WTO), in Switzerland, was suspended at the beginning of December.
The signing of the agreement with Mexico is expected to be completed in the first quarter of 2022
However, the minister assured that the negotiations have been resumed virtually, although he acknowledged that it is a much slower process than it could be in person; Although he announced that it is expected that, from January 15 onwards, the Ecuadorian negotiating team, headed by him and the Vice Minister of Foreign Trade, Daniel Legarda, will travel to Mexico for the last or penultimate round of face-to-face negotiation of the trade agreement with that country.
He revealed that there are pending issues, such as market access.
On the side of Mexico towards Ecuador, he indicated that Mexico still has in its basket of undefined in the negotiation issues related to various products, such as bananas, coffee, cocoa and shrimp; while on the Ecuadorian side they have issues to be defined in terms of industrial products, especially manufacturing issues.
He highlighted, for example, the shrimp issue, in which there is an important sensitivity in northern Mexico, although he assured that the negotiating team works so that these exports from Ecuador can be released within the negotiation agreement.
Finally, Prado hopes that by the middle or end of that year the official talks for a trade agreement with China will begin, after a presidential trip that is planned to that country, although the confirmation of the date will depend on the advance of the variant. omicron.
“We have been working in these months on an internal analysis, which we are also coordinating with the counterpart, China, in order to carry out a sensitivity analysis. It is the first part that has to be: work on good negotiation practices (and) sensitivity analysis in Ecuador ”, Prado specified, who announced that the next part will be the signing of the terms of reference, which is expected to be the beginning of a formal negotiation. (I)
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