Brussels, 13/11/2012 (Agence Europe) - Commissioner for Trade Karel De Gucht has wanted to include agriculture, services and investment in the trade agreement between the EU and Mexico for 12 years.
On a visit to Mexico - where he participated in a forum of businesses from Queretaro on Monday 12 November - De Gucht promoted the idea of reworking the temporary trade pact which was concluded between the EU and Mexico in 2000 as part of their overall 1997 partnership and political cooperation agreement. The idea is to broaden the framework and include more modern trade issues. "Mexico and the European Union have been pioneers of transatlantic free trade but our legal relationship now risks falling behind", he said on Monday.
Europe is Mexico's third biggest trading partner after the United States and China, but the trade of Latin America's second biggest economy (the first being Brazil) is focused on its northern neighbour , which buys nearly 80% of Mexican exports. The EU - which has concluded a free trade agreement with Colombia and Peru that should come into force at the beginning of 2013 - is nearing a wide-reaching trade pact with Canada and could start free trade negotiations with the United States at the beginning of 2013.
De Gucht therefore wants to blow the dust off the legal framework governing the temporary trade agreement between the EU and Mexico - which is based on the gradual and reciprocal tariff and non-tariff liberalisation of trade in goods while taking account of the sensitive nature of some products - in order to include services and agriculture as well as investment, technical barriers and public procurement.
“It will make a lot of sense to upgrade our relations with Mexico, which is in the middle of this whole cluster of agreements that we have been concluding and that we are concluding. Now it is up to the Mexicans to reciprocate such an offer and then we can engage in a process”, De Gucht said. On Tuesday he is due to meet the new president of Mexico, Enrique Pena Nieto, who will officially take up office on 1 December.
Trade between the EU and Mexico has doubled since the entry into force of the bilateral agreement in 2000 - from €21.7 billion to €40.1 billion in 2011. In 2010 the EU was Mexico's third biggest trading partner and its second source of foreign direct investment. In 2011, EU goods exports to Mexico reached €23.8 billion, and EU imports from Mexico were valued at €16.3 billion. In 2010, EU exports in services reached €5.1 billion and its imports €3.1 billion. EU investment in Mexico reached €81 billion in 2010, while that of Mexico in Europe stood at €8.7 billion. (EH/transl.fl)