Latin America focus for gov’t

Wednesday, 08 January 2014 00:10 
THE NEWS


MEXICO CITY – Foreign Relations Undersecretary Vanessa Rubio said that Mexican diplomacy will focus on Latin America and the Caribbean to boost Mexico’s image as a responsible global actor.

The comment was made at the second day of the 25th National Ambassadors and Consuls Meeting, where she called the region “high-priority.”

Rubio said that evidence of this is the intense bilateral and multilateral agenda which includes five important activities this year, such as a possible Free Trade Agreement deal with Panama as early as this year.

She said Mexico would participate in the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States on Jan. 28-30 in Cuba, in which President Enrique Peña Nieto will carry out dialogue with Raúl Castro in the first visit to Cuba by a Mexican president in more than a decade.

Rubio also said that Mexico will participate in five other regional summits: the Caribbean Community and Common Market, the Central American Integration System, the Tuxtla Mechanism, the Pacific Alliance and the Caribbean States Association which will take place in Mérida in April.

Mexican officials will also carry out official visits to Panama, Peru and Brazil, as well as finance infrastructure projects in Honduras, Nicaragua, Belize, Panama and Costa Rica through the Central America and Panama Trust.

Rubio said that Foreign Relations Secretaries from Chile, Peru and Colombia will be speaking with Mexican Foreign Relations Secretary José Antonio Meade and Economy Secretary Ildefonso Guajardo about their membership in the Pacific Alliance.

Also at the meeting, Villarreal said that the North Atlantic Free Trade Agreement must deepen regional integration “after 20 years of proven success.”

Proof of this success, he says, is that the country’s exports have grown by seven times, foreign investment by 10 times and that 40 percent of Mexican exported manufactured goods stay within North America.

Mexican Ambassador to China Julián Ventura said that Chinese companies are looking to invest in the Mexican economy, in sectors such as energy.

Ventura said that Mexico now has a legal framework of cooperation “that allows us to channel Chinese energy company interest into the Mexican market.”