Chile 2013 Blog: The Pacific Alliance: A New Center of Gravity in Hemispheric Trade
At the AS/COA conference in Santiago, this panel discussed the Pacific Alliance’s impact on both regional and global levels of the Chilean economy.
As part of its Latin American Cities Conference in Santiago, Chile, AS/COA hosted the panel “The Pacific Alliance: A New Center of Gravity in Hemispheric Trade.” Panelists included former Minister of Trade, Industry, and Tourism, Luis Guillermo Plata, current director of the Cornerstone Group; Jorge Rosenblut, president of Endesa Chile; and UN Executive Secretary of the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean Alicia Bárcena. Santiago Bureau Chief for Bloomberg News Phillip Sanders participated as moderator.
The panelists discussed the impact the Alliance has had on the Chilean economy at regional and global levels, as well as the economic implications of Chile’s trade relations with other member countries—Colombia, Costa Rica, Mexico, and Peru—after reducing tariffs on more than 90 percent on goods and generating a compromise to eliminate tariffs on the remaining 10 percent in the coming years.
Luis Guillermo Plata kicked off the conversation by recalling the Alliance’s beginnings in 2007 and pointing out that since then, some of the region’s most important economies have come to agreement, despite their differences.
Discussing business, Alicia Bárcena focused on the role the Alliance plays in the internationalization of small- and medium-sized enterprises. Additionally, she spoke about the importance of contextual factors, such as the global slowdown in trade from 2011 to date, and the place of the Asia Pacific within this framework. “Deeper integration among member countries is lacking,” Bárcena said, clarifying that to be truly competitive, the Alliance must promote interregional trade and value chains.
Continuing on the topic of Asia Pacific, Jorge Rosenblut noted Chile’s capabilities and highlighted intraregional investment as the first step in strengthening the Alliance’s economic relationship with Asia. The Pacific Alliance presents a window of opportunities for members to become first world countries, he said.
The panel also discussed the bloc’s future obstacles, a point that Alicia Bárcena returned to, emphasizing the need for integration beyond the trade of goods and services among members, as is the case with the Atlantic Arc Commission. For the Alliance, she noted, it is fundamental to understand the “productive profile” of each country, such as the institutional demands of investment, and deepening development in aspects like science, technology, education, and innovation.
“The point of the Pacific Alliance is to have no borders. We seek a new vision: we should be an integrated platform. It is not about selling a creed, but about promoting synergy between member countries,” concluded Jorge Rosenblut.
Translation by Nneka Etoniru.
Watch the video of the panel, moderated by Phillip Sanders, Bloomberg News (in Spanish):