• Submitted by: manso
• International
• 12 / 17 / 2010

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Escrito por ana valdes portela. jueves, 16 de diciembre de 2010. Foz de Iguazu, Brazil, Dec 16 (Prensa Latina) The Common Market of the South trade bloc signed a preferential tariff agreement on Wednesday with Cuba, Egypt, India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Morocco and South Korea.

  The agreement concluded a ministerial conference of the Sao Paulo Round of the Global System of Trade Preferences among Developing Countries (GSTP), which meet in in Parana. The agreement will be reviewed in two years.

This agreement provides the participating countries with a 20 percent tariff break on 70 percent of the products. The other 30 percent was not included to allow nations to protect their most sensitive sectors.

The agreement should create new opportunities for access to markets for a broad range of products traded between the nations of Africa, Asia and Latin America, especially because the countries that are part of the agreement represent one-third of the world population, with 1.9 billion inhabitants.

The GSTP went into effect on April 19, 1989, with the addition of a 15th member, and now represents 43 nations. That figure may rise to 51 with the possible admission of Burkina Faso, Burundi, Haiti, Madagascar, Mauritania, Rwanda, Surinam and Uganda.

The Brazilian ambassador to the World Trade Organization, Roberto Azevedo, said it was an auspicious, and even historical moment for South-South relations.hr/ale/avp/rab

Source: PL