The IDB, along with the Organization of American States and the U.N. Economic Commission for Latin America, has taken a central role in preparatory work leading to the launching of negotiations for the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA) at the presidential summit in Santiago, Chile, next April.
The IDB has provided technical assistance to several of the working groups created in ministerial conferences held in Denver, Colorado, and Cartagena, Colombia, in 1995 and 1996, respectively. The conferences brought together ministers of commerce from 34 Western Hemisphere nations.
The Free Trade Area of the Americas, first proposed during the 1994 Summit of the Americas in Miami, would develop a comprehensive trade agreement for the entire hemisphere. It would cover traditional issues, such as market access, and new areas including policies on investment, services, intellectual property and competition. Antoni Estevadeordal, FTAA coordinator in the IDB's Integration, Trade and Hemispheric Issues Division, said the Tripartite Committee formed by the IDB, OAS and ECLAC is now completing a feasibility study on the creation of a temporary secretariat that would provide logistical and administrative support for the negotiation meetings that are scheduled to run from 1998 to 2005.
The feasibility study also examines criteria for selecting a site to host the negotiations following the presidential meeting in Santiago, according to Estevadeordal. He said the IDB, along with the OAS and ECLAC, is also jointly maintaining the official FTAA home page on the Internet, where readers can view official documents.