Eurcocommissaris Tajani zal bezoek brengen aan Latijns-Amerika (en)
European Commission Vice-President Antonio Tajani i responsible for Industry and Entrepreneurship will be on an official visit to Latin America from 9 - 13 June to strengthen economic and industrial ties with the continent.
He will be in Chile on 9 June, in Argentina on 10-11 June and in Brazil on 12-13 June. Tajani will meet with business representatives and tourism sector and attend bilateral meetings with Presidents and Government representatives. In Santiago he is expected to meet with President Sebastián Piñera and Ministers for Foreign Affairs, Economy, SME, Tourism.
In Buenos Aires he is expected to meet the President Cristina Fernandez De Kirchner and Ministers for Industry, Economy, Tourism and Federal Planning.
In Brasilia, he is expected to meet with the President Dilma Rousseff and Ministers for Science and Technology, Foreign Affairs, Defence, Trade and Industry. The aim of the visit is to promote further cooperation on industrial and innovation policy in order to boost economic integration, SMEs’ access to finance, raw materials, space policy and tourism.
Background
This is the first time in 15 years that a European Commissioner for industry goes to South America.
In the last years, Latin America has emerged as a strategic and dynamic economic player. The EU is Mercosur and Chile's number one trading partner (second for Latin America's). The 530 millions people market of the South American was growing at over 5% a year before the economic crisis and is returning to similar levels today. The figures for 2010 are: €164bn - 6.2% of total EU trade and 13.6% of Latin American trade - for goods, €44bn - 34% of total Latin American services trade - for service. Latin America export in the EU market mostly primary products such as mining, fuels or agricultural. Europe exports mainly industrial products like machinery, transport equipment or chemicals. The EU is the first investor in the area with €315.5bn, 39% of region's total (2009).
Chile successfully concluded a free trade agreement with the EU entered into force in 2003. EU and Mercosur are still looking for an inter-regional Association Agreement since 1999. In May 2010 at the Madrid conference, both parties expressed their willingness to relaunche the negotiating process for an ambitious and balanced result going beyond the respective WTO obligations.
The main initiatives that Vice President Tajani intends to promote are the following:
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-More coordinated efforts in the field of SMEs, which could result in a "dialogue SMEs"; Strengthen the cooperation in the field of Industrial policy cooperation and innovation;
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-Cooperation in the tourism sector, promoting the pilot initiative "50,000 tourists " launched on 1 June and starting in 2012;
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-Greater cooperation for raw material, as Argentina, Brazil and Chile are major exporters of products such as borates and lithium;
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-Promoting standardisation at international level;
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-Establishing an industrial cooperation for Galileo and GEOSS, in order to develop a space dialogue.