Barbados, Canada, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, the Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Panama, Peru, the United States, and Uruguay issued the following joint statement following the first Trade Ministerial of the Americas Partnership for Economic Prosperity (Americas Partnership) on August 1, 2024:
We, the Ministers and their Representatives of Barbados, Canada, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, United States, Panama, Peru, Dominican Republic and Uruguay with primary responsibility for trade, convened today in person for the first time under the Americas Partnership for Economic Prosperity (“Americas Partnership” or “Partnership”). We have gathered to further deepen our strong economic ties through cooperative initiatives that reflect our shared values and objectives as articulated in our Leaders’ East Room Declaration.
We reaffirm the importance of existing trade agreements among us. We intend for the Americas Partnership to complement these mechanisms and support regional integration, so that they can deliver broadly shared, lasting benefits to more people in the Americas. We further reaffirm the importance of the rules-based multilateral trading system, with the WTO at its core, in providing predictability for businesses and supporting sustainable economic growth.
We further recognize that internationally recognized labor rights, environmental sustainability, and economic inclusion are essential to achieve a more open, fair, and prosperous hemisphere. Accordingly, at this meeting we have established new committees dedicated to Trade and Labor and to Trade and Environment, to ensure that the trade work of the Partnership will reflect these common values.
We celebrate the first annual meeting of the Experts Dialogue on Trade Facilitation, which took place in Bogotá on July 24-25 with the support of the Global Alliance on Trade Facilitation and the Inter-American Development Bank. Experts from all twelve Partnership countries participated in the Dialogue, which focused on the implementation of key obligations in the WTO Trade Facilitation Agreement (TFA): pre-arrival processing, border agency cooperation, and single window. Full implementation of these customs practices to a high standard will reduce barriers to trade among our economies, including for SMEs; promote broad economic participation; and strengthen regional value and supply chains. Building on the discussion during the event, we have adopted a Declaration on Good Practices for Pre-Arrival Processing, which lays out specific goals to more effectively implement the WTO TFA in these areas, and includes the use of modern practices, including digitalization, for more effective risk management and movement of legitimate trade.
We welcome the active dialogue between government officials and stakeholders, to work together to identify and address challenges for intra-regional trade, and we pledge to further integrate stakeholder dialogue into our work.
We directed the Senior Officials of the Council on Trade and Competitiveness (CTC) to continue to advance our agenda of sustainable trade and regional integration by taking the following actions before the next meeting of Partnership Trade Ministers, working through Americas Partnership Trade Committees as appropriate:
- Trade Facilitation. By October 1, prepare a compendium of the discussions and recommendations of the Experts Dialogue in Bogota to support full implementation of high-standard practices throughout Partnership countries. By November 1, identify focus areas for the 2025 Experts Dialogue.
- Digitalization. By August 15, complete the survey of current practices by Partnership countries on digital and electronic signatures on forms and documents for trade, and, thereafter, identify improvements to facilitate border processes, including cross-border recognition, where appropriate.
- Inclusive Trade and SMEs. By September 15, share the inclusive trade inventory of each Partnership country’s programs to support SMEs involved in trade. Countries will then convene a virtual meeting to share best practices for inclusive trade and SMEs among Partnership governments later this fall and discuss next steps for sharing information from the inventory with the public.
- Trade and Environment. To advance environmental sustainability as a foundation of the Trade Track, by November 1, Partnership countries will convene to discuss cooperative activities under the Committee.
- Trade and Labor. To advance internationally recognized labor rights as a foundation of the Trade Track, by November 1, convene an in-person event among Partnership governments to discuss cooperative activities under the Committee.
- Regional Value & Supply Chains. Drawing from the analysis of the IDB competitiveness studies, begin by convening a public-private workshop on the medical device sector, with the goal of developing trade policy tools for the generation of regional value and supply chains in this sector that foster productive development and promote investment. The countries will also consider activities in other sectors.
- Good Regulatory Practices. By 2025, develop a program to share each Partnership country’s regulatory agenda for key sectors, to advance good regulatory practices in the region and support implementation of the 2022 Summit of the Americas Declaration on Good Regulatory Practices.
We extend our appreciation to the government of Ecuador for hosting this meeting, and to the CTC and all the officials and non-governmental participants who continue to advance our Leaders’ vision for a more prosperous hemisphere through equitable trade and investment practices. We look forward to convening in the coming months, before the next Leaders’ Summit in Costa Rica.
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