The Council of Ministers of the Pacific Alliance met today in Mexico City, in order to make progress on the different coordination efforts, in preparation for the XI Summit of Heads of State of the Pacific Alliance, to be held in Puerto Varas, Chile, next 1st of July.
The XV Ministerial Council meeting began with a minute of silence in memory of Ambassador Raúl Patiño Alvistur, Vice-Minister of Foreign Affairs of Peru and member of the High Level Group, who died recently in Lima.
As part of its program, the Council of Ministers evaluated the work done by the Technical Groups during the first half of 2016 and the fulfillment of the presidential mandates contained in the Declaration of Paracas 2015. It also analyzed the current state of external relationships of the Pacific Alliance, particularly with Observer States and other integration initiatives such as the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and Mercosur. In this context, the Council of Ministers decided to accept the requests from a new group of countries as Observer States to the Pacific Alliance: Czech Republic, Norway, Slovakia, Egypt, Ukraine, Argentina and Romania. Similarly, the issue of new mandates, in preparation for the next summit in Chile and the future development of the Alliance, was addressed.
Lastly, the Council of Ministers approved the creation of the Environment and Green Growth Technical Group, the Labor Technical Group, and the Digital Agenda Technical Subgroup.
In the course of this meeting, the Council of Ministers signed, together with the Minister of International Trade of Canada, a Joint Statement of Partnership between the members of the Pacific Alliance and said country, which will strengthen ties with Canada, this being the first statement of this nature.
It should be noted that the Pacific Alliance is a regional integration initiative formed by Chile, Colombia, Mexico and Peru, created on 28 April 2011. The countries in this initiative combine a population of 216 million people and account for 39% of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of Latin America and the Caribbean.
Take a look at the photos of the event on our Flickr account ➤ http://bit.ly/1swur3y
Mexico City, June 8, 2016