President Piñera highlights the need to deepen integration during the 16th Pacific Alliance Presidential Summit in Colombia
During the event in Buenaventura, Colombia, the Heads of State discussed interregional, inclusive and digital economic development, facilitating citizen mobility and the regional and global COVID-19 situation.
The President of Chile, Sebastián Piñera, spoke on Wednesday about the progress made on regional integration and the need to deepen cooperation between nations at the 16th Pacific Alliance Presidential Summit in Colombia.
At the highest-level meeting of the bloc made up of Chile, Colombia, Mexico and Peru, the countries’ leaders discussed the progress made by the Alliance under the Pro tempore presidency of Colombian President Iván Duque. Topics under discussion were boosting the digital economy and the challenges for 2022 under the new Pro tempore presidency of Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, which will include integration with other economies.
“We’ve known how to address the challenges that we’ve faced as the Pacific Alliance in the past. In 10 years, we’ve managed to reduce tax on trade between our countries, facilitate the movement of citizens, and include topics like the environment and the full and complete equality of rights, duties, opportunities and dignity between men and women,” President Piñera stated. He was speaking at the summit in Buenaventura, where he was accompanied by Foreign Affairs Minister Andrés Allamand.
The summit was also attended by Colombian President Iván Duque, Peruvian President Pedro Castillo, Ecuadorian President Guillermo Lasso, Mexican Treasury Secretary Rogelio Ramírez, and a delegation from Singapore, which signed an agreement to join the alliance as an associate state. At the meeting, the leaders discussed and reached important agreements to boost economies and on support among nations.
The leaders signed the Creative Economy and Buenaventura declarations, whose aim is to strengthen intraregional trade and inclusive development. They also signed a Free Trade Agreement with Singapore, which will allow countries to increase regional exports and imports.
“The alliance has major new challenges to come, but it is also the case that never before have we had so many instruments, so many tools that we can use to address them,” the Chilean President stated.
The Pacific Alliance came about as a regional economic and development initiative in 2011, during President Piñera’s first administration. The organization has become fundamental to a new way of promoting the continent’s growth, integrating more than 225 million people in the world’s eighth-largest economy.
The opening of markets, together with the trade-facilitation measures introduced by the Pacific Alliance, have allowed the bloc to become Chile’s sixth-largest trade partner. Trade has increased at an average annual rate of 5% over the past two decades, going from US$2.5 billion in 2000 to US$6.7 billion in 2020.
Today, the Pacific Alliance is the principal market for a total of 1,288 Chilean products and one out of every three Chilean export companies send their products to alliance countries.
During the plenary session of the 16th Presidential Summit, the Colombian President also praised and valued the role of President Piñera in strengthening and deepening the alliance. Iván Duque presented an award to the Chilean President at the event.
“Thank you, President Duque. I want to congratulate you for your administration as President Pro tempore of the Pacific Alliance, as it was very fruitful,” President Piñera concluded.