By Donna Ortega,
Financial Gleaner
News Editor
BUENOS AIRES:
THE SIXTH Americas Business Forum opened yesterday in Buenos Aires, Argentina, with a hectic schedule of discussions on the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA) seizing the attention of business leaders, including a delegation from Jamaica who are here as observers.
The forum at the Sheraton Hotel & Convention Centre, is seeking to define a set of actions that the regional private sector would like to be discussed and implemented at the Summit of the Americas to take place in Quebec, Canada, on April 19.
Anthony Hylton, Jamaica's Minister of Foreign Trade, and his delegation, are expected to be among regional trade ministers also pushing FTAA negotiations at the Argentine Foreign Ministry in Buenos Aires this week.
The Trade Ministers and delegates from the Americas Business Forum will come together in the forum's final plenary session today.
The Business Forum described by its organisers as the premier private sector hemispheric event on the FTAA, brings together senior business leaders and trade ministers from the democratic countries of the hemisphere to present recommendations on FTAA negotiations on the eve of the trade ministerial.
Members of the Jamaican business community including Mr. Anthony Chang, president of the Jamaica Chamber of Commerce (CofC), Martin Mais, director of the Jamaica Exporters' Association, Erica Gaynair-Shilletto, Nicola Gordon-Rowe, research manager of the Jamaica Manufacturers' Association, and Anthony Gomes, director of the CofC are joining with their regional counterparts in mulling over submissions on market access, agriculture, investments, Government procurement, intellectual property rights, dispute settlement, competition policy, subsidies, antidumping, countervailing duties, electronic trade and small economies.
The team is basically on a "fact-finding mission as Jamaica is not making a submission this year. Kermit Moh represents USAID's office in Jamaica.
According to Mr. Chang, "We need to get as much information as possible in order to understand what is needed of us".
Mr. Mais said he hoped also "to get a clearer understanding of what it is all about and its impact on Jamaica."
According to Julio Werthein, the forum's president, the proceedings of the 11 workshops were crucial to FTAA negotiations. He said they had to find a balance between the nations of the north, central, south and of the Caribbean so that by the year 2005, the objectives of free trade among them would be a reality.
Apart from the workshops, a plenary with discussants Enrique Iglesias, IDB president, and Cesar Gaviria, OAS General Secretary, will examine the situation and perspectives of the Continental Integration process. US Commerce Secretary, Donald Evans, is scheduled to speak at lunch.
Today, the forum will review the conclusions of the workshops and at lunch will be addressed by Rafael Flores, chairman of the Argentina's Trade Commission.
The forum ends today with a joint plenary of the FTAA ministers and delegates from the Americas Business Forum which will consider the report from the workshops presidents' submitting the recommendations from the private sector.
