Uruguay and China prepare to sign free trade agreement

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – Uruguayan President Luis Lacalle Pou announced on Wednesday the beginning of a Free Trade Agreement (FTA) with China based on the “openness” perspective of the South American country.

The president said negotiations would “formally begin” after the FTA feasibility studies resulted in a “positive conclusion”.

“Since this government took office, despite the pandemic, we have had a foreign relations policy of linking with the world with an open-minded vocation,” Lacalle Pou recalled.

The signature is part of the government’s strategy to “try to sell, to trade the country’s products, raw materials, industrialized products, and technology”.

Uruguay started the procedures for this alliance in 2021 despite being under Mercosur parameters which establish that member states must have the endorsement of the rest (Brazil, Argentina, and Paraguay) to negotiate with other countries.

In this regard, the president referred that his country has insisted “time and again” on its intention to “open up to the world” and “establish all kinds of agreements with different nations”.

“In every Mercosur summit and every instance we have had, we have reaffirmed Uruguay’s openness vocation. This does not contradict or oppose membership of the bloc,” said the Uruguayan president.

However, Lacalle Pou pointed out that the Uruguayan Foreign Minister, Francisco Bustillo, contacted the Mercosur member countries to inform them of the decision.

In the president’s opinion, “agreements imply prosperity, opportunities and jobs,” and his government is creating strategies to achieve these indicators in the country.

In addition to Mercosur’s position, Lacalle Pou’s government must take into account the impact that this decision may have on the jobs of the country’s workers, the competitiveness of the companies that have already invested in the country and ensure that there is no long-term dependence on the Asian nation.

With information from teleSUR