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MERCOSUR Would Rather Trade with Israel than the US; Trade Pact Imminent
Via NY Transfer News Collective * All the News that Doesn't Fit
AP via Intl Herald Trib - Nov 28, 2007
http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2007/11/28/business/EU-FIN-Mercosur-Israel.php
Mercosur poised to clinch historic trade deal with Israel: official
by The Associated Press
GENEVA: Mercosur, South America's four-nation trading bloc, is poised
to clinch a historic free-trade pact with Israel, officials said
Wednesday.
The deal, expected to be completed Thursday, would be the first
free-trade agreement for Mercosur, a market of nearly 250 million
people covering most of South America.
"The idea is to finish all the details and wrap up the whole thing
tomorrow (Thursday)," said Itzhak Levanon, Israel's ambassador to
international organizations in Geneva. "It is something very im****tant
because it will be the first trade agreement for Israel in South
America."
Israel already has a number of trade agreements, including with the
United States, European Union, Canada and Mexico.
But Mercosur -- comprised of Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay --
has struggled in attempts to reach a deal with the 27-nation European
Union because of disagreements over how much to open up Europe's
protected farm markets.
Brazil also was instrumental in thwarting attempts by the U.S. to
create a Free Trade Agreement of the Americas that would have stretched
from Canada to Chile, becoming the world's largest free commerce zone.
Trade flows between Israel and South America are relatively small. The
package is expected to facilitate freer movement of some goods traded
back and forth, but is not expected to usher in dramatic commercial
expansion.
Levanon declined to comment on what products or services the agreement
would include because talks were ongoing. He said the final treaty
would probably be signed in the middle of next month, most likely in
Uruguay.
The talks in Geneva this week ? the eighth round between Israel and
Mercosur ? built on previous discussions in Brazil, Israel and Uruguay,
said Levanon, who represents the Jewish state at the World Trade
Organization.
"It is on the way to being done, barring anything unexpected, which I
don't foresee," he told The Associated Press. "This shows how im****tant
the Israeli market has become."
In 2005, Mercosur started negotiations with the six-member Gulf
Cooperation Council on a free trade zone that aimed to provide South
America access to a lucrative im****t market. Talks with the group
including Kuwait and Saudi Arabia are ongoing.
But experts were skeptical from the start on whether the two blocs
would be able to look beyond their domestic agendas and resist
potential American efforts to lure them away with lucrative bilateral
trade deals.
It was not clear if Israel was trying to complete its deal with
Mercosur before Venezuela joined the trading group. The oil-rich
country's bid to enter Mercosur has already been approved by the
legislatures of member nations Argentina and Uruguay. But still to be
convinced are lawmakers in Brazil, where President Hugo Chavez has
ruffled feathers for suggesting that its Congress was a "pirate's
parrot" of the United States.
Chavez also tried to rally world leaders in 2006 to halt the Israeli
military offensive in Lebanon, calling it a "fascist" assault and
comparing it to the Holocaust.
Countries are increasingly seeking bilateral or regional trade deals,
which are seen as the best option for ex****t-driven growth in the
absence of a new global pact among the 151 members of the WTO.
The United States has been the most active on the bilateral front,
racking up over a dozen agreements since the WTO's current round of
trade talks began in 2001, mostly with smaller countries. The
agreements have caused concern among other governments -- including
those in Mercosur -- and at the WTO that the U.S. was distracted from
the multilateral talks, where the potential benefits of a deal are much
greater, especially for poorer nations.
*
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