XII Special Meeting of the Latin American Council of SELA

09 June 2017. -  Representatives of 27 Latin American and Caribbean countries will meet on 13 June in Caracas on the occasion of the XII Special Meeting of the Latin American Council, the highest decision-making organ of the Latin American and Caribbean Economic System (SELA), to elect the new Permanent Secretary for the period 2017-2021.

The four-year mandate of the current Permanent Secretary, Ambassador Roberto Guarnieri, who took office on 2 January 2013, was extended by Decision 564 of the Regular Meeting of the Latin American Council held in Caracas on 26 and 27 October and 12 December 2016, since no candidates were nominated on that occasion.

The Permanent Secretariat of SELA has become a significant partner and counterpart of multilateral regional and global organizations. In this connection, among other activities of its Work Programme, it is worth noting those related to Foreign Trade Single Windows and Digital Collaborative Ports, carried out jointly with CAF-development bank of Latin America; to public policies for small and medium-sized enterprises, with the cooperation of the OECD and to bodies of the United Nations, such as the Perez-Guerrero Trust Fund, UNCTAD and the United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNISDR), for the conduction of the annual meetings of International Cooperation Directors, the analysis of topics selected in the area of trade and competition and the participation in the organization of events on disaster risk prevention and continuity of business, respectively.

Finally, it should be noted that the Permanent Secretariat of SELA formed in 2013 the Direction of Studies and Proposals to carry out a multi-year economic, empirical and conceptual research programme on matters of regional trade and integration. As a result, the Permanent Secretariat has launched the publication of the series “Studies on the economic integration of Latin America and the Caribbean”, which will collect the major studies conducted to date and whose first issue, which presents the first quarterly systematic report of the various processes of economic integration in Latin America and the Caribbean, has already been distributed.