- Title: EU-MEXICO/SUMMIT Mexico, EU aim for deeper trade ties with new accord
- Date: 12th June 2015
- Summary: BRUSSELS, BELGIUM (JUNE 11, 2015) (REUTERS) EU FLAGS OUTSIDE EUROPEAN COUNCIL
- Embargoed: 27th June 2015 13:00
- Keywords:
- Location: Belgium
- Country: Belgium
- Topics: General
- Reuters ID: LVAB72OXHACUL7XYJ1ECDM9TUDCR
- Aspect Ratio: 16:9
- Story Text: Mexico and the European Union launched on Friday (June 12) negotiations to renew and modernise a trade pact agreed in 2000.
Building on the existing pact with Mexico from 2000, the European Union hopes to add Mexico City to an emerging transatlantic free-trade zone. Negotiations could start at the end of the year.
"It will be the seventh summit that we shared. It's particularly relevant in the light of the agreement we took to initiate the necessary steps to upgrade our general agreement which as we heard is already 15 years old," Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto told a news conference after an EU-Mexico summit in Brussels.
As with the EU's pact with Canada and its plans for a deal with the United States, a new accord with Mexico would further open up markets in services and allow businesses to bid for public tenders in each others' countries.
Such accords go beyond trade and tariffs to integrate economies to adapt to global supply chains in which many elements from a range of countries make up a final product.
"With these two countries, the United States and Canada, being two of our major strategic and business partners, I think it would be an omission not to modernise the global agreement between Mexico and the European Union, which enables us to be competitive and above all to be aligned the same way our two North American partners are with the European Union. And Mexico needs to be aligned and needs to be in accordance with the agreement, with the modernised version of the agreement with the European Union," Nieto said.
The European Union has signed an ambitious trade accord with Canada that must be ratified. It is negotiating an even larger pact with the United States, which if agreed would be the largest of its kind, encompassing almost half the world's economic output and a third of global trade.
A more comprehensive deal with the European Union would allow Mexico to join Colombia and Peru in having modern trade pacts with the European Union and the United States.
"This modernised agreement will be a stronger foundation for taking our partnership forward because it will be far more ambitious and comprehensive. Our vision for this relationship is for more political cooperation and more trade," European Council President Donald Tusk said.
Following the collapse of global trade talks, the world's biggest economies are seeking to sign a patchwork of bilateral and regional deals to lift economic growth and compete with China, which the West sees as too dominant in commerce.
Mexico buys most of its goods from the United States and China, but the European Union remains a way for Mexico to reduce its reliance on the world's two biggest economies. - Copyright Holder: REUTERS
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