Brasília – Brazil’s minister of Foreign Affairs, Ernesto Araújo (pictured above), said on Tuesday (15) that revising Mercosur’s Common External Tariff (CET) is a priority for the economic bloc consisting of Brazil, Argentina, Paraguay, Uruguay and Venezuela. According to the FM, revising it will make it easier for Mercosur to compete in the global trade and attract foreign investments.
The meeting of the Common Market Council, the highest-level agency of Mercosur, took place via videoconference. CET is a set of tariffs charged on importing products and services from companies based in Mercosur countries and is based on the Mercosur Common Nomenclature (NCM) for goods and services.
“A new CET will bring the necessary contribution to greatly improve our inclusion in the global trade, strengthen our legal certainty, attract investment and meet the expectations of the production sector and our consumers as a whole,” Araújo said in the meeting.
The meeting comes ahead of the 57th Summit of Heads of State of Mercosur, which will take place on Wednesday (16). Araújo said that the first task of the bloc’s countries is working to conclude the agreement between Mercosur and the European Union (EU) and the European Free Trade Association (EFTA) countries, which were approved in June 2019. Araújo stressed that Brazil is also negotiating trade agreements with Canada, Singapura, South Korea and Lebanon.
The UE-Mercosur agreement must still be ratified by EU and Mercosur agreements. On Monday (14), after a meeting between representatives of the European Commission and ministers from Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay, the agency said that the implementation of the Paris Agreement, which sets greenhouse gas emissions reduction targets and sustainable development goals, was a necessary condition for signing the EU-Mercosur trade deal.
Translated by Guilherme Miranda
