“Mexico receives from Colombia a strong Pacific Alliance”

Punta Mita, Mexico, June 19, 2014.- The Foreign Ministry’s Undersecretary for Latin America and the Caribbean, Vanessa Rubio Márquez, said that her country “receives a strong Alliance Pacific, with a broader and deeper international projection,” adding that a great forward impetus is desired because it is a fundamental foreign policy tool for Mexico.

During a conference prior to the work of the IX Pacific Alliance Summit to be held from June 18th to the 20th in Punta Mita (in the Mexican Pacific coast), in which the President Enrique Peña Nieto will receive from Colombia the Pro Tempore Presidency of this mechanism of regional integration, Rubio Márquez added that in just three years, the Pacific Alliance has broken milestones in trade, labour linkage, cooperation and financial markets.

Accompanied by the Undersecretary of Foreign Trade of the Secretariat of Economy, Fernando De Rosenzweig, Rubio defined the Pacific Alliance as a deep, open and pragmatic process of integration.

Deep, because it goes beyond free trade and includes subjects like immigration, financial, cultural and educational cooperation; it is an open process not only because of the link between the four member countries (Chile, Colombia, Mexico and Peru) but because it maintains a relationship with its 32 observers countries, and it is pragmatic because it is expected to generate concrete results for the member countries.

On the other hand, Undersecretary De Rosenzweig emphasized the importance of the ongoing work that the Pacific Alliance is making in terms of trade. He added that work is under way to “incorporate the Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs)”. De Rosenzweig said that they are seeking for support from the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) and from the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB).

He added that the Pacific Alliance represents 50% of the trade in the region, which is a positive sign for free trade within Latin America and that it is also an integration platform in the Pacific Rim.