Cairo – Ministers and deputy-ministers of Arab and South American countries attended yesterday (04), at the headquarters of the League of Arab States, in Cairo, a preparatory meeting for the 2nd Summit of Arab-South American Countries (Aspa), to be held on March 31st and April 1st in Doha, Qatar. The global financial crisis and the importance of the adoption of joint mechanisms by nations from the two regions were the prevailing issues in the discussions. All of the participants approached the topic and tried to present ideas for fighting the effects of the international turmoil.
The Brazilian Foreign Minister, Celso Amorim, reaffirmed the need for creating bi-regional mechanisms for fighting the financial crisis, as he had disclosed earlier in an exclusive interview to ANBA, published yesterday. "It is important for the ministers of Finance in both groups to be able to develop solid joint mechanisms to protect our trade from the crisis and to have our countries suffer less from its consequences,” he declared. He once again talked about the idea of establishing an investment fund maintained by nations from the two regions.
The Argentine Foreign Minister, Jorge Taiana, talked about strategies that the Aspa countries must seek in order to face the crisis. "We were victimised by a crisis originated in the most developed countries that calls not only for a reform in the international financial architecture, but most of all calls for a reformulation of relations between the states. In the case of our group, that implies the expansion of South-South cooperation and the use of our comparative advantages," he said.
To the Argentinean, the coordination of efforts in three areas is essential: promotion of fiscal and monetary policies guided to strengthen the global demand, transformation of multilateral credit organisations and negotiations that may correct imbalances in international trade. Proposals like this are being discussed in the scope of the G-20, a group that includes the 20 main economies of the world, developed and developing.
"We insist on the need for a new international financial architecture that may count on players and that favours credit for development, especially for infrastructure works, that should have a positive impact on the level of [economic] activity, the creation of jobs and the export capacity of our countries," said Taiana.
"At the same time, it will be necessary to guarantee adequate flexibility for developing countries to be able to execute their policies for diversification and productive expansion and, this way, to positively contribute to the growth of production and global demand," he added.
To Taiana, it is also necessary to continue seeking new possibilities to expand and diversify inter-regional trade through an effort made by the countries in both blocks to simplify the trade of agricultural and industrial goods. "It would also be necessary to intensify technical cooperation in several fields, like the processing of food and investigation in the area of new energy sources, which would allow for adding value and quality to our products," he said.
The ministers also debated the need of not limiting contact between both blocs to meetings between ministers or high-level government employees. "We need to establish a forum for dialogue to allow meetings between politicians, businessmen, researchers, writers, poets, architects, painters and non-governmental organisations, that is, to representatives of the civil society," said the Foreign Minister of Bahrain, Khalid Bin Ahmed Mohamed Al Khalifa. He made his address in Spanish and was greatly applauded by the participants.
The foreign ministers also discussed items that are not totally defined in the declaration to be adopted in Doha. "The document should also be revised by high-level employees of both regions on the eve of the summit of heads of state," said the head of the Latin America department of the Arab League, Ibrahim Mohieldin. "But they are just small details, as the declaration is already practically defined. It includes nine main sections including all scopes of works on relations between the countries in the Aspa, like the economic, political, cultural, development, environmental and social sectors," he added.
The ministerial meeting in Cairo was concluded with the offer of Peru to host the third summit in Lima, in the first quarter of 2011. The proposal received unanimous approval.
*Translated by Mark Ament and Gabriel Pomerancblum
