WASHINGTON -(Dow Jones)- The U.S. will press governments attending a Free Trade Area of the Americas ministerial meeting in Quito, Ecuador, to set firm dates for trade bargaining to begin in just a few months, U.S. Trade Representative Robert Zoellick said Wednesday.
Zoellick will lead the U.S. delegation for the Friday meeting of trade ministers from 33 other western hemisphere countries.
"In Quito, we will endeavor to advance the negotiations into the crucial phase of specific, concrete bargaining," Zoellick said in a statement. "This will move us closer to a hemispheric partnership stretching from Alaska to Tierra del Fuego - 800 million economically integrated and democratically governed people united in the opportunity to prosper and improve our lives."
A top U.S. priority for the meetings is to establish firm meeting schedules - "over the coming months, not years" - for countries to exchange their offers for increasing market access, USTR said. Governments would exchange initial offers, and then, after a period of review, request improvements to these offers. The U.S. would like to see revised offers due by July 15, 2003.
The U.S. is also championing a technical-assistance program to help smaller countries beef up their negotiation skills.
At the close of the Quito meeting, Ecuador will hand over FTAA chairmanship to the U.S. and Brazil, which will lead the talks jointly for the next two years. USTR said the U.S. will ask ministers to take up its offer to host the 2003 ministerial in Miami.
-By Elizabeth Price, Dow Jones Newswires; 202-862-9295; Elizabeth.Price@dowjones.com
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