Brazil and the USA negotiate cooperation agreement
Valor Econômico
Brazil and the United States see "good chances" of reaching an agreement on economic and commercial cooperation in 2010 aiming at restructuring their bilateral relations.
"The idea is to sell more. The agreement is broad and anything can be included", said the Minister of Foreign Relations of Brazil, Celso Amorim, when he received the main American trade negotiator, Ron Kirk, yesterday evening in Geneva. A meeting is scheduled for the 9th, in Brasilia. According to Amorim, the negotiations may move on because the USA liked the model proposed by Brasília, which is similar to the one the country closed with Switzerland.
The Brazilian expectation is that the agreement should include the promotion of investments (instead of the traditional investment protection), facilitation of trade, technological cooperation among companies, the issue of double taxation, ethanol, understanding in the phytosanitary front in order to prevent agricultural barriers and even the delicate area of patents.
After 30 minutes of discussion with Kirk, Amorim said the commerce may be broadened without necessarily involving the Mercosur, to the extent that such does not interfere with the Common External Tariff (CET) of the block. From January 2009 to October of the same year, the USA was the second market for the Brazilian exports (US$ 12.9 billion), behind China (US$ 17.7 billion). As for imports, Brazil has bought more from the USA (US$ 16.8 billion) than from China (US$ 12.8 billion), Argentina (US$ 9 billion) and Germany (US$ 8 billion).