The initiative to
create a Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA) was
announced at the first Summit of the Americas, held
in Miami in December 1994. In their Declaration of
Principles, Ministers resolved:
"to begin immediately to construct the "Free
Trade Area of the Americas" (FTAA), in which
barriers to trade and investment will be
progressively eliminated. We further resolve to
conclude the negotiation of the "Free Trade Area
of the Americas" no later than 2005, and agree
that concrete progress toward the attainment of
this objective will be made by the end of this
century. We recognize the progress that already
has been realized through the unilateral
undertakings of each of our nations and the
subregional trade arrangements in our Hemisphere.
We will build on existing subregional and
bilateral arrangements in order to broaden and
deepen hemispheric economic integration and to
bring the agreements together "
An overview of the FTAA process explaining events
during the preparatory period (1994-1998), and the
subsequent FTAA negotiations can be found on the
official FTAA Website.
The FTAA negotiations were launched at the second
Summit of the Americas, held in Santiago, Chile in
April 1998. Eight ministerial meetings have
been held to date.
| Documents
related to the Summits of the Americas and
FTAA ministerial meetings |
|
05 November 2005 |
Mar del Plata, Argentina: Fourth Summit of the
Americas |
| |
Declaration |
| |
Plan of Action |
|
13 January 2004 |
Special Summit of the Americas:
Declaration of Nuevo León |
|
20 November 2003 |
Miami, USA:
Eighth ministerial meeting |
|
01 November 2002 |
Quito, Ecuador:
Seventh ministerial meeting |
|
22 April 2001 |
Québec, Canada: Third Summit of the
Americas |
| |
Declaration |
| |
Plan of Action |
|
07 April 2001 |
Buenos Aires, Argentina:
Sixth ministerial meeting |
|
04 November 1999 |
Toronto, Canada:
Fifth
ministerial meeting |
|
19 April 1998 |
Santiago, Chile: Second Summit of the
Americas |
| |
Declaration |
| |
Plan of
Action |
|
19 March 1998 |
San José, Costa Rica:
Fourth ministerial meeting |
|
16 May 1997 |
Belo Horizonte:
Third ministerial meeting |
|
21 March 1996 |
Cartagena, Colombia:
Second ministerial meeting |
|
30 June 1995 |
Denver, USA:
First ministerial meeting |
|
11 December 1994 |
Miami, USA: First Summit of the Americas |
| |
Declaration |
| |
Plan of
Action |
| Source: FTAA Website |
A Trade Negotiations Committee (TNC) comprised of
Vice-Ministers responsible for trade, was
established to oversee the work of the negotiating
groups and committees and to establish the overall
architecture of the Agreement. Nine negotiating
groups were established, along with special
committees on issues relating to smaller economies,
civil society, institutional issues, and electronic
commerce. Draft texts of
the FTAA negotiations were made public at the sixth,
seventh and eighth ministerial meetings.
At the launch of the negotiations, FTAA Ministers
committed to making "concrete progress by the year
2000" by agreeing on specific business facilitation
measures to be adopted.
A Hemispheric Cooperation Program (HCP) was
approved in November 2002 to assist countries in
strengthening their capacity to implement and fully
participate in the FTAA.
In the period during which countries were
negotiating the FTAA Agreement, a number of
countries made descriptions of their positions
public.
During the period following the seventh trade
ministerial, countries continued their market access
negotiations. In February 2003, several countries
made their initial FTAA Market Access offers or
descriptions of their positions public:
|
Initial Market Access Offers |
|
Canada |
Cross-border services and investment |
| |
|
| |
Government Procurement |
| |
General conditions applying to Canada's market
access offer |
| |
|
| |
Agriculture and Industrial Goods |
| |
Summary of the Initial Canadian Offer |
|
Costa Rica |
Presentación de Ofertas de Costa Rica en el
ALCA
 |
|
MERCOSUR |
Lista Inicial de Oferta de Bienes -
Introducción
 |
| |
Lista de Oferta Arancelaria del Mercosur para
ALCA
 |
|
Argentina and Brazil |
Initial Offer in Services |
|
|
|
United States |
Highlights of the U.S. Offer |
|
Source: Argentina, Secretaría de Comercio y
Relaciones Económicas Internacionales; COMEX, Costa Rica; Brasil, Ministerio
das Relações Exteriores,
Divisão da Área de Livre Comércio das Américas;
International Trade Canada; Office of the United States Trade Representative (USTR) |
At the eighth ministerial meeting in Miami in
2003, Ministers recognized the need for flexibility
in the negotiations, and agreed that countries would
be able to assume different levels of commitment
within the FTAA, with one common set of obligations
applicable to all countries and the possibility of
plurilateral negotiations conducted within the FTAA
with a view to defining additional obligations.
The TNC was instructed to develop a balanced and
common set of obligations. The TNC met in February
2004, and the Co-Chairs, Brazil and the United
States, have subsequently issued five joint
communiqués.
The results of the 2003 Miami Ministerial meeting
were noted in the Declaration of Nuevo León, which
came out of the Special Summit of the Americas held
Mexico in January 2004. The 2005 Mar del Plata
declaration reflected two views on the FTAA.
In paragraph 19, one group of countries instructed
their officials responsible for trade to resume
meetings to advance in the FTAA negotiations;
another group of countries expressed the view that
conditions were not yet in place for a free trade
agreement to be achieved.
Since the 2003 Miami Ministerial, a number of
countries or groups of countries have issued
statements on the FTAA process. In March 2004 the
Andean Community, Mercosur and Chile issued a joint
communiqué reaffirming the principles contained in
the Miami Ministerial Declaration regarding the
FTAA. In August 2005, Mexico, the country that is
hosting the FTAA 's Administrative Secretariat
which is the location of the FTAA meetings,
sent a letter to the TNC Co-Chairs communicating the
results of an informal meeting that had been held on
25 August in Puebla, and requesting the TNC
Co-Chairs to convoke a vice ministerial meeting to
address the future of the FTAA in advance of the Mar
del Plata Summit that was to be held in November
2005. In September 2005, Canada posted on its
website a letter to the TNC Co-Chairs urging the
resumption and conclusion of the FTAA negotiations.
The presidents of the United States and Brazil, the
countries that serve as the FTAA Co-Chairs, met in
November 2005 and issued a joint statement in which
they reaffirmed their commitment to the FTAA
process, based on the Miami framework. and in June
2006 the United States and Chile reaffirmed their
commitment to the FTAA in a joint statement.
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