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Food insecurity can be combated with trade

Food insecurity can be combated with trade

Achieve an increase in trade between the countries of Latin America is one of the keys to fight against food insecurity in the region, the general secretary of the Latin American Integration Association (Aladi)the Uruguayan Sergio Abreu.

The pandemic and the war in Ukraine caused a loss of 40,000,000 jobs in micro, small and medium-sized companies in Latin America, a situation “worrying” and that requires challenges to be faced to achieve real integration, he added.

For this reason, Abreu stresses the importance of increasing intraregional trade and of countries improving the infrastructure to be able to carry it out more efficiently.

“Road transport, fluvial transport, waterways and rail transport, all of this is cost. A truck that takes three days adds a price that drives a good product out of the market. All of this is what countries have to continue working on”point.

In addition, the person who was chancellor of Uruguay between 1993 and 1995 maintains that the negotiations between the countries that make up Aladi represent the eleven % of exports of these, while internal trade between European nations is of the 60%.

Fight against food insecurity

For Abreu, social inclusion is “the first” that must be faced and for this he stresses the importance of recovering trade to achieve integration “real and concrete”.

“We have to take on a challenge. The first is normative convergence. What does that mean? That today the tariffs, the taxes of a good that enters and leaves a country, are no longer as important as the regulations. Countries defend themselves by imposing sanitary and non-sanitary restrictions. A whole host of regulations, which are protections that are obviously done by the largest countries and is also done in the region itself.”Explain.

In this sense, he stresses that it is necessary “dismantle” the system so that there are no obstacles in the agri-food chain, in the food basket and that there is no need to face “bureaucratic spaces”.

Likewise, it ensures that the political will, the reading of the international reality and the correct use of the instruments with which it is available are other keys to fight against food insecurity.

Along the same lines, Martín Piñeiro, director of the Agrarian Affairs Committee of the Argentine Council of International Relations, told EFE that food insecurity is combated with “economic development, income distribution and social programs”.

“In times of crisis, social programs are central”points out and adds that the best solution is “Improve the income of all people” so that they have the capacity to buy food.

At the same time, Piñeiro indicates that the inflation that affects the region is “a problem” and says that there must be a de-escalation in order to improve the situation.

Digitization instead of paper

Abreu emphasizes the importance of digital transformation and says that Aladi is working in this regard.

At this time, he said, Aladi is developing a digital platform called SMEs Big business”aimed exclusively at micro, small and medium-sized companies, which in the region are more than 10,000,000.

This regional body works to facilitate trade by replacing paper with digital to speed up processes in a world where “What used to be done in two years now has to be done in ten days.”

Finally, Abreu emphasizes that for Aladi the mission is “try to reach out to the most vulnerable” and give these “a bicycle” so that they can march forward.

“It is the people, the countries that decide, but we put the bicycle and the round wheel on them and that is the enthusiasm that one has every day. The wheel is rounder, now the important thing is how long or how far they want to ride the bike”he concludes.

Abreu and Piñeiro coincided within the framework of the meeting “Public Dialogue. praise the day”which was held in Montevideo and promoted by this body so that experts in various fields promote improvements to the regional trade system.

Source: EFE

Source: Gestion

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