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STR to Meet With CAFTA Trade Ministers Jan. 8 to Officially Launch FTA Negotiations International Trade Daily.(http://web.bna.com) U.S. Trade Representative Robert B. Zoellick plans to meet trade ministers from five Central American countries in Washington, D.C., on Jan. 8 to officially launch negotiations aimed at concluding a free trade agreement by the end of 2003, sources said Dec. 10. The sources said that, at the meeting, the ministers will seek to agree on a schedule for specific aspects of the negotiations and announce financial support for "capacity-building" initiatives designed to help the five countries--Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, and Nicaragua--conduct the negotiations and take advantage of the trade opportunities that will be created under the free trade agreement. "Hopefully, we'll have a big announcement on capacity-building to make," one U.S. source said. Other sources said that, separately, the five countries that will be part of the trade agreement with the United States--known as the Central American Free Trade Agreement, or CAFTA--plan to unveil the week of Dec. 9 their individual national strategies for capacity-building over the next few months. An official with the foreign ministry in El Salvador, who asked not to be identified, said that El Salvador's "national action plan" on capacity-building, for instance, will focus on improving the collection and dissemination of trade statistics and on training government personnel to analyze trade data, among other things. The plan will also be aimed at ensuring that small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), which account for some 40 percent of El Salvador's labor force and one-quarter to one-third of the country's gross domestic product, have the necessary tools to take advantage of the FTA with the United States. Zoellick sent Congress on Oct. 1 the required notice under the Trade
Act of 2002 outlining the Bush administration's plan to launch FTA talks
with the five Central American countries. But the trade act requires the
administration to allow Congress 90 days to consider the proposal before
official launch new talks with a potential FTA partner.
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