Chile rallies behind Port-of-Spain, front-runner in Secretariat race

CHILE RALLIES BEHIND PORT-OF-SPAIN, FRONT-RUNNER IN SECRETARIAT RACE
CHRIST CHURCH, BARBADOS – Port-of-Spain has formally secured the backing of Chile, in connection with CARICOM’s bid for the Permanent Secretariat of the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA).
Chile is the latest country to signal its endorsement of Port-of-Spain.  Recently, Port-of-Spain received the backing of Peru.
“These developments are a vote of confidence as regards CARICOM’s bid, which has clearly found favour in a majority of FTAA countries,” Trinidad & Tobago’s Minister of Trade and Industry, Hon. Kenneth Valley said.
Chile’s endorsement of Port-of-Spain brings to eighteen the official number of FTAA countries supporting the candidature of Trinidad & Tobago’s capital city.
“Port-of-Spain is also poised to receive additional endorsements, having obtained unofficial support from other countries seeking to join the emerging consensus in the hemisphere.”  This according to an informed source, who indicated that at the appropriate time details of further endorsements would be announced.  The source also underscored that “it is no longer a question of if Port-of-Spain will be the seat of the FTAA, but rather when.” 
A CARICOM Delegation headed by the Prime Minister of St. Vincent & the Grenadines, Dr. Ralph Gonzalves, made a pitch for CARICOM’s bid to Colombia and Ecuador during a lobbying mission to those two countries, from January 24 to 28, 2005.  This trip was the fourth in a series of FTAA lobbying missions approved by CARICOM Heads, in July 2003.  Trinidad & Tobago’s Ambassador to Caracas, Sheelagh de Osuna, described talks between the CARICOM Delegation and Colombian and Ecuadorian officials as “encouraging.”
These developments come at a time when representatives from Brazil and the United States are exploring ways to re-launch talks for the creation of the Americas-wide trade pact.
A meeting of FTAA Trade Negotiations Committee (TNC) Co-Chairs, slated for January 26 and 27, was overtaken by an encounter at Ministerial Co-Chair level between Brazilian Foreign Minister Celso Amorim and outgoing United States Trade Representative (USTR) Ambassador Robert Zoellick.  The top Brazilian and US trade representatives met separately on the occasion of a weekend meeting of over two-dozen Trade Ministers from a select group of developed and developing countries.  Taking place on the margins of this year’s annual World Economic Forum in Davos, the informal ‘mini-ministerial’ gathering of Trade Ministers considered a ‘road map’ to provide impetus to World Trade Organization (WTO) Doha Development Agenda negotiations in five key areas.
The planned late January meeting of the FTAA TNC Co-Chairs was intended to resume informal consultations, in a bid to undertake further work toward building consensus on the key elements for guidance on the common set negotiations.  According to the Director-General of the Caribbean Regional Negotiating Machinery (RNM), Ambassador Dr. Richard Bernal, this past weekend Amorim and Zoellick mandated the TNC Co-Chairs meet at the end of February.