Mexico says Pacific trade talks could conclude by April

chicagotribune.com

Mexico's Minister of Economy Guajardo addresses the audience during a dialogue as part of the Global Cities Initiative conference in Mexico City (Tomas Bravo Reuters, / November 14, 2013)

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• Mexico's Minister of Economy Guajardo addresses the audience during a dialogue as part of the Global Cities Initiative conference in Mexico City

Reuters

1:58 p.m. CST, January 17, 2014

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - An ambitious trade pact being negotiated among Pacific Rim nations could be concluded as soon as April, Mexican Economy Minister Ildefonso Guajardo said on Friday.

The Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) would cover almost 40 percent of the global economy and create a free trade zone reaching from North America to Japan and New Zealand, and the United States is keen to wrap up talks in the coming months.

"My estimate from the start of the year is that we could be closing a deal ... in the first four months of the year," Guajardo told reporters in Mexico City.

It could even be sooner than April, but would depend on how negotiations developed, the minister said.

The countries in the talks include the United States, Canada, Japan, Australia, New Zealand, Singapore, Malaysia, Brunei, Vietnam, Chile, Mexico and Peru.

Guajardo said he was upbeat about the prospects for foreign direct investment (FDI) in Mexico this year, although he forecast it would be lower than 2013, when the total was boosted by Anheuser-Busch InBev's acquisition of brewer Grupo Modelo.

The minister said he hoped the FDI total would be above $22 billion, or higher than 2013 without the Modelo deal.

(Reporting by Alexandra Alper; Editing by Dave Graham and Chizu Nomiyama)

‘Mexico, Chile will keep good relations’

Wednesday, 18 December 2013 00:10
THE NEWS


Chile’s President-Elect Michelle Bachelet has announced that her government will continue to maintain excellent relations with Mexico.

During a Tuesday press conference, Bachelet said that Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto called her from Turkey on Sunday night, following Chile’s runoff presidential election, congratulating her on her landslide victory.

“As I’ve always said, true friends show it in difficult moments, and Mexico with Chile, during the most difficult moments for Chile, has always been by our side, supporting us,” she said.

Bachelet went on to say that she will continue to support regional integration without regard to political ideology, adding that it was under her first administration (2006-10) that the Chilean government announced its support for the Arco del Pacifico, a proposed commercial agreement that would encompass Mexico, Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Panama, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru and Chile.

“One key to international politics that will continue to be of great importance will be regional integration and without doubt a global perspective and a focus on the Pacific,” she said, adding that her administration “will continue supporting all types of initiatives that allow us to expand and deepen regional integration and we will therefore continue supporting any initiatives where Chile is involved, provided that it does not have an exclusionary character.”