Already the recently concluded Canada-Columbia FTA has adversely impacted the US wheat exports. The agreement has given Canada an immediate price advantage over the US wheat, which hitherto enjoyed a dominant market share in Columbia. The thaw in Columbia-Venezuela ties with a visit by Santos to Venezuela signals that the number of players in the Columbian marketplace is bound to rise rapidly in the coming days.

The business team is understood to have held meetings with the Bogota Chamber of Commerce and the Ministry of Commerce; and would proceed to Cali, Medellin, Barranquilla, the coffee region, and other key industrial areas of the country. The US commercial representative in Colombia, Margaret Hanson earlier had expressed a desire to see the stalled FTA between Colombia and the US ratified since the Latin American nation already had open access to the US market for almost all its products but the US did not have backwards – so in terms of common sense, it was hoped that the FTA should happen soon.

Likewise, Colombia’s new ambassador to the US Gabriel Silva said that one of his first tasks would be to kick-start the FTA talks, and added that his country regarded itself as an economic force in the medium term as Colombia’s exports were put at $40bn. The trade deal, which involves the reduction of customs duties and other obstacles to trade, was signed by the former Colombian President Alvaro Uribe and the former US President George Bush in 2006. While Colombia’s Congress was quick to pass the treaty, the Obama administration has yet to ratify it.

During his presidential election campaign, Barack Obama opposed approving a trade deal with the Andean nation since crimes against the Colombian trade-union leaders remained unprosecuted. As president, Obama has expressed a willingness to push the deal through, provided that Colombia meets certain human rights conditions.

Colombia is believed to provide scope for investments in sectors including plastics, textiles and food stuff. According to Hanson, the delegation comprises of representatives from the security sector, construction, food, plastics, and also a financier who funds companies, particularly the SMEs.

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The trade deal is likely to be concluded with the fifth round of negotiations at the sidelines of Mercosur summit in Buenos Aires at the end of this month which the Trade Minister of Egypt Rachid Mohamed Rachid would be participating. The Mercosur is a free trade region of South America comprising of Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay and Paraguay.

A reliable source from the Egyptian Ministry of Trade and Industry is reported to have informed the Egyptian daily that it had agreed with Mercosur to implement the deal in a phased manner by setting up five categories for specific commodities and products.

The first category, which includes intermediate goods and raw materials, will be tariff-free from the effective date of the FTA. The second group’s duties will be removed over a period of four years, the third one’s over eight years, and the fourth over ten years. However, the time period for the fifth category has yet to be worked out as it includes highly sensitive products, and feared to negatively affect the local businesses.

Egypt is understood to have requested Mercosur to include textiles, clothes, construction materials, and engineering and chemical products among the first category. Egypt’s main exports are petroleum, aluminium, raw cotton and leather, whereas it mainly imports poultry, oils, sugar, soya beans and meat. Once the accord is signed, it will become the second FTA that the Mercosur is signing with a non-Latin American nation after Israel.

Last month, Evandro Didonet, the head of the Department of Foreign Negotiations at the Brazilian foreign office (Itamaraty) observed that the FTA with Egypt was “of the greatest importance”, as Egypt was one of the countries with the greatest weight in the Arab world. In his evaluation, it should grant “great visibility” to the South American bloc and open a “gateway” into the Middle East and North Africa.

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As mentioned by the Kuwaiti premier before the trip that the country had not undertaken a high-level international trip like this in recent past is primarily aimed at leveraging the KD 37bn ($125bn) which the government has set aside for the five-year development plan of Kuwait. Furthermore, Kuwait desires to showcase the region and the world as well its “resilience” to the Iraqi invasion and occupation in 1990.

In an interview with The Kuwait News Agency (KUNA), Ali Al Sammak, who serves as the Kuwait’s Ambassador to Chile, Argentina, Uruguay, Paraguay, Canada and Ambassador Designate to Mexico said the Premier was “very keen” on opening embassies in more South American countries. According to a KUNA report, Kuwait is looking to open new embassies in Cuba, Mexico and Chile to strengthen economic and diplomatic ties with most nations in South America.

Al Sammak further added that though Kuwaiti relations with South America was good yet in the fields of education, economy, healthcare, investment, and industry required a lot of effort to exact right results. The high level Kuwaiti team includes the ministers of Foreign Affairs, Finance, Commerce and Industry as well as officials from the Kuwait Chamber of Commerce and Industry (KCCI).

The out-stretched tour is expected to see the signing of a series of co-operation agreements covering trade partnerships and other areas of interests between Kuwait and the touring nations.

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Botswana also signed a MoU to engage Cuban medical personnel every two years with a clause not to re-employ them after the completion of their service. Minister of Health, Dr John Seakgosing who accompanied the President said that his country was looking forward to Cuba’s new offering in the treatment of diabetes through co-operation in providing medical care to its growing diabetic population.

Botswana will also be seeking the Cuban know-how in controlling vector menace through the use of biolarvicides chiefly to mitigate debilitating diseases such as malaria, filariasis and Onchocerciasis. Some studies have indicated the vector-spread diseases had seriously impacted the progress of the African countries by lowering productivity through prolonged sicknesses to their working citizens or their relatives.

On the diplomatic front, the Foreign Minister of Botswana, Phadu Skelernani termed the US embargo against Cuba as “unnecessary”, and appealed for revocation of the sanctions. He was maintaining the rhetoric of his president, who said on the first day of his visit, “Sometimes, in Africa, we receive millions of dollars from rich countries. However, proportionally speaking, Cuba gives us a lot more than anybody else”.

Skelernani and the Cuban Deputy Foreign Minister Marcelino Medina signed agreement on co-operation and Seakgosing and his Cuban counterpart, Jose Ramon Balaguer signed pact on development of a comprehensive health care system. The trip to Cuba is the Botswanan President’s second one, the last time he visited the island was in 2007 as the Vice-President of his country.

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The TI earlier had presented series of detailed recommendations to curb humanitarian issues including corruption and social asymmetries. In its recent press release it had appealed the OAS member states to urgently implement anti-corruption laws to ensure peace, security and sustainable development of the region.

According to Transparency International (TI), the anti-corruption organisation, despite the OAS being the first regional organization to adopt a convention against corruption in 1996, TI monitoring reports show there are serious gaps in its implementation. Although Insulza and other participants were able to identify the issues, it is not sure how the General Assembly – “Peace, Security and Cooperation” would translate them into meaningful action.

The Secretary General Insulza acknowledged “in Latin America there are too many poor, and we have important levels of inequality; but most Afro-descendants are poor, most indigenous citizens are poor, an important number of households headed by women are poor, and 80 percent of the disabled are poor. Therefore, poverty and inequality in our region have colour, gender and condition. It’s a reality. That is why we place such strong emphasis on the relationship between discrimination and human rights and also between discrimination and socio-economic problems.”

Latin America and the Caribbean have the highest income inequality worldwide, with five of the ten most unequal countries in the world located in the region. The two-day meet is believed to have reached an agreement on broad-based involvement from private business entities along with governments to promote democracy, social equality and responsibility, and the fight against crime.

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The report has clarified that though the term “infrastructure” could denote a wide range of facilities and systems including economic and financial infrastructure, social infrastructure and physical infrastructure, the study has centred on physical infrastructure. As per the report, the projections for the future infrastructural development have been drawn from a study by the consulting firm, Booz Allen Hamilton.

In a 2007 report, Booz Allen Hamilton has estimated that investment needed to “modernize obsolescent systems and meet expanding demand” for infrastructure worldwide between 2005 and 2030 was at about US$ 41 trillion. It said the North American (the US and the Canadian) share of the infrastructure needs alone would be around US$ 6.5 trillion through 2030.

While the PIR finds both involvement by public sector as in the case of China and a broad-based public private partnership (PPP) seen in India has country-specific successful models in the speedy development of infrastructural projects. The report highlights the Eleventh Five Year Plan for Energy development by the National Development and Reform Commission of the People’s Republic of China as an example of one such plan which sets specific goals for the development of energy infrastructure in China. The PPP-based National Highway Development Programme of India which aims to deliver about 55,000 kilometres of highways is cited as one good example with a clearly well-defined role for the private sector.

The Positive Infrastructure Initiative was launched in 2009 in response to a clear mandate provided to the Forum at the Annual Meeting 2009 in Davos by the CEOs of the leading infrastructural organizations to ensure that the massive fiscal spending on infrastructure not only generates the employment to restart the global economy but also creates infrastructure assets that foster long-term economic competitiveness, and are environmentally and socially sustainable.

The World Economic Forum (WEF) is an independent international organization committed to improving the state of the world by engaging leaders in partnerships to shape global, regional and industry agendas. The official website of the WEF in its latest press release has made available details about the report.

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Whether the EU saves itself from present crisis or not, there are many things to be absorbed by the new unions in the making much before taking the plunge. Primarily the alert system, deliberated by the EU to give powers to the parent body to ‘semi-audit’ tasks to monitor budget discipline not only of national governments but also of regional and local bodies, would ensure better transparency. This could prevent governments from hiding grey areas of decentralised budget appropriations, which was partly the case with Greece that stands accused of having lied about its accounts for years.

Besides, periodical evaluation of state affairs including politics based on ground realities and pre-set stitch in time solutions should be in place to ward off the dangers of any of the member-state getting weakened beyond manageable proportions. Projections and goals have to be marked by success failing which should attract stringent punitive measures; something that Brussels is planning to impose on members whose public debt is running out of control.

Furthermore, the member-states should make constant efforts to bring down their debts, which have been proven possible by countries like Belgium and the UK in the past. Before the global meltdown, Belgium managed to reduce its debt to 84.2 percent of GDP in 2007, down from a peak of more than 130 percent in the early 1990s. Likewise, the UK had a debt peak of 300 percent of its GDP after the Second World War, which had been gradually reduced to 33 percent by 1990.

There is also much to be imbibed from the off-target response such as ‘Europe 2020′, which is looked at sceptically by the Eastern EU members and criticized by German Chancellor Angela Merkel for contrasting reasons. The objectives of ‘Europe 2020′ include fight against poverty, increase in education and employment rate.

The proposal unveiled by the European Commission in March highlighted on poverty alleviation calling for reduction in the number of Europeans living below the poverty line by 25 percent, lifting 20mn out of poverty from the current 80mn. However, such policies with progressive milestones should be included right from the beginning and should be modified time to time with ‘proper’ budgetary allocation.

The EU’s new strategy for sustainable growth and jobs, ‘Europe 2020′, comes in the midst of the worst economic crisis in decades. The new strategy replaces the Lisbon Agenda, adopted in 2000, which largely failed to turn the EU into “the world’s most dynamic knowledge-based economy by 2010.” Nonetheless, the new proposal puts innovation and green growth at the heart of its blueprint for competitiveness and proposes tighter monitoring of national reform programmes, one of the greatest weaknesses of the Lisbon Strategy.

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The release said Fairtrade Labelling Organizations International (FLO), the standards and certification wing of the Fairtrade movement has collaborated with the ARM for the successful completion of the certification program. Through the new standard, gold products including jewellery, coins and religious artefacts will be essentially certified and labelled with the FAIRTRADE and FAIRMINED (F&F) marks.

The F&F marked gold products are hoped to emancipate the A&S miners from the ugly grip of middlemen who deprive them of obtaining proper value for their merchandise. The brand is believed to provide an opportunity for consumers to indirectly involve in a social cause without shelling out anything extra. The proceeds of the organized and increased market access are also understood to radically change the mining methods.

Surprisingly, the A&S miners annually produce just 15 percent of global gold supplies, but their labour effort constitutes 90 percent of gold extraction. Harriet Lamb, Executive Director of the Fairtrade said many in the trade were exploited by the middle men who pay below market prices and cheated them on weight and purity of the gold content. He added the F&F standards were an important development tool, and would complement other development interventions such as access to basic amenities to the communities.

Similarly, Cristina Echavarria, the ARM´s Executive Director, said the F&F program was providing a win-win platform for both A&S miners through their workmanships and consumers with their jewellery purchases. The program also promotes ethical consumer habits by making them aware of what they buy and how the proceeds of the same are utilized.

The F&F gold will be initially launched in the UK and then rolled out to other countries with a long term vision of capturing 5 percent of the gold jewellery market over a 15-year period, totalling 15 tonnes of the F&F gold annually. The standard was piloted by the ARM with nine legally established mining producer organizations in Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador and Peru, and now applications are open to all A&S gold mining organizations in Latin America. More producer organizations from Latin America are expected to join the system by 2011 and beyond, and from 2010 the ARM plans to establish a network of pilot projects in Africa, and subsequently in Asia.

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Chavez during a political rally on Saturday apprised that the leaders would meet on Monday in Caracas to further shape an extraordinary project” on a currency that will “break the dependency on the dollar, its economic and financial colonialism.

The currency called Sucre was named after Jose Antonio de Sucre who fought for independence from Spain alongside the Venezuelan hero Simon Bolivar in the early 19th century. The currency is expected to initially function as an electronic instrument before it is made to a paper format.

The Sucre is likely to be in circulation as the ECU, which was a forerunner to the euro. Then, the ECU was operational as an account unit managing the stable exchange rates between member states before the national currencies were assimilated to the euro.

Since the signing of MOU on the Latin American currency last year, Chavez has repeatedly urged his member states to cut down foreign reserves in the form of the US dollars. Most South American countries stored their reserves in the US dollars, and for the past several years the socialist states of the region wanted to detach them from the US domination in regional trade. The growing influence of China in the region has also compels the left countries seeking new ways to store cash.

The ALBA comprises of Venezuela, Bolivia, Cuba, Ecuador, Nicaragua, Honduras, Dominica, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, and Antigua and Barbuda. The ALBA was founded in 2004 by Venezuela and Cuba as a counterweight to the Free Trade Area of the Americas that the US and some Latin American nations were proposing at the time.

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With this action, Chavez has brought another business sector under state control, in an attempt to reduce prices of essential items, with the country peaking at the end of last year with an inflation of 25 percent, the highest among the Latin American countries. Chavez has repeatedly threatened to seize businesses that raise prices in response to the country’s first currency devaluation since 2005.

On January 8 this year, Chavez devalued bolivar against dollar to perk up the economy in tatters. He declared a new two-tiered rate: 2.6 per dollar for priority goods, such as food and medicine, and 4.3 for imports of non-essential items, such as air conditioners and electronics.

In the past 11 years in office, Chavez has nationalized major businesses from the economy, including oil, banking, electricity and telecommunications; and the retail chain seizure is latest in the line. Exito, headquartered in Colombia, runs six hypermarkets and around 32 supermarkets in Venezuela.

According to the Venezuelan president, after nationalization, the stores run by Exito and several other stores including a newly built shopping mall in Caracas will be used to strengthen Comerso, a new government retail initiative which plans to sell products at highly subsidized rates. “How much longer are we going to allow transnational companies to come here to speculate with our prices?” the Venezuelan leader asked viewers of his weekly TV program, Alo Presidente.

Chavez said legal reforms were under way to take over companies accused of speculation. In this manner, more than 200 stores are likely to get nationalized or would be added to the recently announced state-run retail chain.

According to sources, businessmen fear that the hounding of businesses by the government will only dent the confidence of the economy, and also alienate foreign investments. The head of Caracas Chamber of Commerce, Industry and Services, Victor Maldonado said Chavez’s efforts to boost the state’s role in the economy with takeovers were going to ruin the country.

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The new agreement will thus lift the ban on vehicle imports from Columbia to Venezuela. Columbia had exported 15,000 vehicles to Venezuela last year and in the previous year the figures stood at 45,000. In 2008, the trade between both countries have reached about $7.5bn, and Columbia was the major gainer in the exchange.

Venezuela is Columbia’s second largest trading partner after the US. Though there are significant trade imbalances weighing against Venezuela with just 20 percent share of the two-way trade pie, the deals expect to address those issues too.

Since the end of 2007, the trade between both countries got affected when Uribe refused Chávez’s mediation for the release of hostages held by Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) guerrillas in Colombia. The relations further strained when Uribe accused Chávez for providing a safe haven to the FARC rebels in the Venezuelan borders, and at that point Chávez even declared support for them.

But lately, the Venezuelan President has backtracked from his stance and urged FARC to lay down its arms after the recent hostage drama where people were rescued by the Columbian military. Analysts claim Chávez purportedly has mellowed down owing to lower oil prices, the major revenue earner for his country and the global economic meltdown. In the present scenario he did not wish to alienate anyone in the region to avoid derailment of his regional ambitions, they added.

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