PERU: CONGRESS RATIFIES FREE-TRADE AGREEMENT WITH THE U.S.
On June 28, a midnight vote in Peru's Congress overwhelmingly ratified the free-trade agreement (FTA) negotiated with the US last year (see NotiSur, 2006-01-13). Protestors broke into Congress and scuffled with police and protested in the streets to say the deal would harm several sectors of Peruvian society, but the outgoing Congress rejected their arguments. The treaty now awaits approval in the US Congress.
Peru Trade Promotion Act now in US Congress' hands
The agreement, the US-Peru Trade Promotion Act (PTPA), was signed on April 12 by Peruvian Minister of Foreign Trade and Tourism Alfredo Ferrero Diez Canseco and US Trade Representative (USTR) Rob Portman, following the conclusion of negotiations in December 2005.
When Colombia, Ecuador, and Peru had been negotiating multilaterally with the US, the trade package had been called the Andean Free Trade Agreement (AFTA) but has since been renamed the PTPA after Peru left its Andean neighbors behind.
Colombia has also concluded negotiations with the US (see NotiSur, 2006-03-10), although a minor controversy exists regarding differences in the versions of the agreement that the US and Colombia each have. Top Colombian officials have been conferring with the US to resolve the textual differences.
The US suspended negotiations with Ecuador after federal authorities there ruled that an illegal sale by US petroleum corporation Occidental barred it from conducting further operations in Ecuador (see NotiSur, 2006-06-02).
In June, prior to the ratification of the agreement, Lima newspaper La Republica compared the advantages and disadvantages it would bring Peru, according to two reports by the US International Trade Commission (ITC) and the nongovernmental organization (NGO) Oxfam International. The ITC's figures projected that exports from Peru to the US would be greater than US$349 million, 8% higher than current exports to the US. Imports to Peru from the US would be more than US$1 billion, a figure 25% higher than current imports.
The commission also predicted that the US GDP under the agreement would increase by US$2.1 billion, a growth rate of 0.02%. Imports from Peru represent 0.31% of total imports to the US.
Oxfam: Peru loses in agriculture, medicine prices
Oxfam argued that the Peruvian agricultural industry would be negatively affected by the agreement. Producers of rice, wheat, barley, sugar, meat, cotton, dairy, and other products would be hurt by competition with subsidized US...
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