Alianza del Pacífico (octubre 14/16). After finishing a round of meetings of more than 10 technical groups of the Pacific Alliance (PA) that took place this week in the city of Santiago, today gathered the High Level Group, formed by the vice-ministers of Commerce and Foreign Affairs of Colombia, Mexico and Peru, and the general director of International Economic Affairs of the Foreign Office, Andrés Rebolledo, who led the meeting on behalf of Chile’s pro tempore presidency of the PA.
“This is the first meeting of vice-ministers after the Puerto Varas Summit. We were greatly impressed by the advances reported by each of the technical groups involving the presidential mandates set forth last July. After listening to their reports, we established an action plan for the next High Level Group meeting in Colombia by the end of this year in order to continue strengthening our integration mechanism”, said Andrés Rebolledo.
It is also worth mentioning the progress made on the coordination with the four countries’ business sectors, which is why the HLG received today representatives from the PA Business Council and the Swiss company Nestlé, along with the ambassador of Switzerland in Chile, all of which participate in developing an important cooperation program to foster youth employability within the member countries.
Another topic of relevance is the current work being done to close ties between the Pacific Alliance and ASEAN, where the agreement made between both integration blocs last September in New York as part of the UN General Assembly, is paramount.
Significant progress
Part of the review of the work of the technical groups performed by the vice-ministers of the HLG includes the level of progress on Regulatory Cooperation for pharmaceuticals and food supplements. This time the Regulatory Cooperation Group also met with representatives from the private sector of those sectors from the four countries that took part in the “Adjoining Room” (Cuarto Adjunto) exercise.
One of the groups that reported important progress is the People Mobility Group, who noted the definitive start of the exemption for visas to permanent residents of third markets when visiting member countries of the Pacific Alliance; the consulates cooperation project; and the agreements of the Vacation & Work program.