WASHINGTON (Reuters) - In a move to make sure Western Hemisphere free trade talks stay on track, the United States will urge other countries at an upcoming Ecuador meeting to agree to a timetable for finishing the negotiations by January 2005, a top U.S. trade official said Wednesday.
The proposed Free Trade Area of the Americas agreement would expand the North American Free Trade Agreement covering Canada, Mexico and the United States to every other country in Latin America and the Caribbean except Cuba.
Regina Vargo, assistant U.S. trade representative for the Western Hemisphere, said the United States wants the Nov. 1 trade ministers' meeting in Quito, Ecuador, to produce a "very ambitious set of directives" for finishing the talks.
"Given that we've got about 27 months left, the answer is to lay down some clear markers for ... getting from here to there," Vargo told a Washington trade audience.
The Quito meeting will be the first meeting of top trade officials from the 34 FTAA countries in over a year.
At an April 2001 meeting in Quebec, Western Hemisphere leaders reaffirmed their commitment to finishing the proposed trade pact stretching from Alaska to Tierra del Fuego by 2005.
Since then, the region has been wracked by political and economic turmoil in Argentina, Venezuela and Peru.
In addition, Brazil appears on the verge of electing a leftist president with a skeptical view of the FTAA.
Vargo said the current economic difficulties in Latin America have reinforced the need for finishing the pact quickly.
The United States also hopes that its plan to conclude a free trade agreement with Chile by the end of this year and a regional trade pact with five Central American countries in 2003 will keep other Latin American countries interested in finishing the FTAA talks by January 2005, she said.
To be decided in Quito are the parameters for future market access negotiations for agricultural and industrial goods.
The United States wants to be able to open its markets more quickly to poor countries in the region than to more advanced countries.
However, Brazil says market access offers should apply equally to all countries in the region.
Countries are scheduled to make their first market access offers between Dec. 15, 2002, and Feb. 15, 2003.
The Quito meeting takes place just days after an Oct. 27 runoff election to decide who will be Brazil's next president.
Workers' Party candidate Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva is currently leading in the polls and fell just 3 million votes short of winning the race in a first-round vote on Sunday.
Lula's view of the FTAA as a U.S. "annexation" of the region has renewed questions about whether the pact can be completed by 2005. However, U.S. officials have been careful to say that they hope to work with whoever wins the Brazilian election.
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