• by IPS Correspondents (ouro preto, brazil)
• Thursday, December 15, 1994
• Inter Press Service

OURO PRETO, BRAZIL, Dic 15 (IPS) - Ninety-eight percent of the Mercosur (Southern Cone Common Market) race has been run, but the last stretch is the hardest, Brazilian Finance Minister Ciro Gomes said on Thursday.

The Mercosur Council are meeting this week, and Gomes said that he was confident that any remaining "differences can be resolved."

He said that the Uruguayan representatives "should be sensitive enough to reduce" the number of products they want to have excluded from the zero-tariff bracket.

Uruaguay has nearly 1,000 excluded items, while Paraguay has 800, Argentina 300 and Brazil only 30.

These products will be exempt from the free-trade agreement until the system is fully established in the year 2000.

In addition, Argentine industrialists were opposed to allowing Brazil to export 20 percent more parts to Argentina than it imports from the country.

The original plan was for Brazil to import unlimited amounts of car parts and treat them as national products, but Argentina wanted to renegotiate for a one to one exchange.

The two nations also discussed sales of wheat, with Brazil promising to put a 20 percent tariff on non-Mercosur wheat beginning April 1995, thus reducing competition from subsidised North American and European grain.

Argentina will provide Brazil with four million tonnes of grain per year, though prices and guarantees were not settled.

Perhaps as a result of their experience in Ouro Preto, Argentine officials proposed the creation of a Mercosur conflict resolution body to settle disputes, defend competitiveness and regulate anti-dumping mechanisms.

The body would help establish legal harmony among the four member nations (Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay), working over the next six months until the system up and running.

The Paraguayans had suggested an independent subregional tribunal to fill this role, but the Brazilians were opposed, and the Argentine proposal for a Trade Committee to investigate any disagreements has received greater acceptance.

© Inter Press Service (2014) — All Rights Reserved. Original source: Inter Press Service

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