- Title: NAFTA negotiators seek to enshrine Mexico's energy reforms
- Date: 3rd September 2017
- Summary: VERACRUZ, MEXICO (FILE) (REUTERS) GAS FLAME OIL DRILLING TOWER VARIOUS OF WORKERS ON OIL DRILL AERIAL OF OIL WELL VARIOUS OF CRUDE OIL BEING EXTRACTED
- Embargoed: 17th September 2017 19:17
- Keywords: Kenneth Smith NAFTA talks oil Pemex drilling energy reform
- Location: MEXICO CITY; VERACRUZ, MEXICO
- City: MEXICO CITY; VERACRUZ, MEXICO
- Country: Mexico
- Topics: Government/Politics,International Trade
- Reuters ID: LVA0056X1L003
- Aspect Ratio: 16:9
- Story Text: U.S., Canadian and Mexican negotiators are zeroing in on ways to enshrine Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto's sweeping energy reforms into a modernized North American Free Trade Agreement, Mexico's chief negotiator said on Saturday (September 2).
The 2014 reforms wrung control of the country's oil and gas sector from state hands, opening it up to private investment, and incorporating them into the 23-year-old NAFTA is seen as a way to help preserve them for the long term.
"We're working in this sense, analysing all of the elements that need to be included in the energy discussion to reflect the reform Mexico established," Mexico's chief trade negotiator, Kenneth Smith, said on Saturday after a bargaining session in the second round of NAFTA modernization talks.
Smith, speaking to reporters as he walked side-by-side with his counterparts John Melle of the United States and Steve Verheul of Canada, added that negotiators would "look for mechanisms that allow us to integrate ourselves in a positive way in the energy sector."
Trade negotiators from the three nations are working through the weekend in Mexico City to present more proposals to revamp NAFTA, an accord that underpins more than $1.2 trillion in annual cross-border trade. - Copyright Holder: FILE REUTERS (CAN SELL)
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