Ambassador Baxter’s
Prepared Remarks for BASC (Business Alliance for Secure Commerce)
Latin American Integration Association (ALADI), Montevideo - Uruguay
June 21, 2007
(beging text)
I want to thank BASC
for its invitation and for giving me the opportunity of
addressing such a distinguished group of business leaders.
It is a pleasure to share with you some of my thoughts about
the status of Uruguay´s and the United States´
relationship, how to improve Uruguay´s access into
the US market, and the role of the Embassy –and principally
of you, entrepreneurs– in developing our bilateral
trade relationship. Opportunities are limitless.
Blooming bilateral relationship,
strong flows of trade and investment
I am very pleased to be coming here at a
time when our economic bilateral relationship is blooming.
Before my arrival, the U.S. had granted
Uruguay a 1.5 billion dollar bridge loan, and worked thoroughly
to achieve the swiftest-ever reopening of its beef market.
In 2004 and 2005, we became Uruguay´s principal export
partner, buying as much as one-third of Uruguay´s
sales. Since then, we have bought as much as Uruguay´s
traditional principal market, Brazil. Our purchases double
Argentina’s and triple Germany’s.
We have signed three important agreements
in less than three years. In 2004, we signed an Open Skies
Agreement that allows for extending flight frequencies and
destinies. A year later, in late 2005, we signed a Bilateral
Investment Agreement to protect and to promote bilateral
investments. And, in January 2007, we signed the Trade and
Investment Framework Agreement, TIFA.
Uruguay is very important to us because
it already possesses the political and cultural values and
institutions needed for democracy, growth and progress.
U.S. Investment is strong, over one-hundred American companies
work here, especially in forestry, tourism, and agriculture.
According to our Department of Commerce, the US stock of
direct investment exceeds $600 million. But according to
our information it is above that. Just two of the US-sourced
main investments –Weyerhauser and Sabre– generate
almost two thousand high-quality jobs. Having begun its
operations recently, Sabre already contracts 900 people,
especially youngsters. And Weyerhauser employs 900 people
in the countryside.
The role of the Embassy and the
private sector in enhancing and consolidating trade
a) Embassy: We continue working
harder than ever for the development of our people and business
communities. This will be the sixth month in which I have
the honor of being Ambassador to Uruguay, and it has been
an amazingly interesting and productive time.
In November 2006, we celebrated the entry
into force of the bilateral investment treaty and we hosted
a Congress delegation with a special focus on agriculture.
In January 2007, Deputy U.S. Trade Representative Ambassador
John Veroneau visited Montevideo to sign the TIFA. Secretary
of Treasury Paulson will visit Montevideo next July; and
Secretary of Commerce Carlos Gutierrez will come in next
September.
During my first six months, I have participated
in exciting events in Washington along with Minister Astori,
Chief of Staff Fernandez and Ambassador Gianelli introducing
Uruguay to the U.S. business community. Just a week ago,
I went with minister Lepra to Minnesota and Atlanta while
at the same time an Uruguayan delegation was visiting Texas
and North Carolina to learn more about bio-fuels. These
visits proved to be extremely useful and I look forward
to a very productive follow up.
I have tirelessly promoted Uruguay as the
best place to do business in Latin America to businesspeople
in the United States. I have brought here several very important
financiers in charge of large capital funds and have elicited
their interest in investing in Uruguay. I am already seen
increased interest in the country on the part of US business
since the Bilateral Investment Treaty came into force in
November of last year. Locally, I have personally paid three
visits to the interior, to the five departmentos (Canelones,
San Jose, Colonia, Lavalleja and Soriano).
This series of high level visits and tours
are a reflection of the good shape of our bilateral relationship.
However, the best tokens of our outstanding relationship
are President Bush´s visit to Uruguay in past March,
and President Vazquez´s visit to the United States
in May 2006. President Bush spent three days in Uruguay,
more than in any country he visited during his trip to the
Southern Cone. Uruguay was the highlight of President Bush’s
Latin American tour and the President came back to Washington
determined to enhance our relationship further. Two weeks
after the President’s visit I went to Washington to
ensure that follow up would take place.
The upcoming opening of the blueberry market,
the announced investment of a casein plant by General Mills,
the sixth largest food producer, and the cooperation on
bio-fuels are fruits of our recent efforts. The US blueberry
market is a $180 million market, in which goods enter duty-free
and is currently supplied by Chile, Canada, and Argentina.
We are in conversation regarding other products, such as
citrus and ovine meat, among other items we are discussing
within the framework of the TIFA. This is an excellent instrument
which allows us to take a broad look at all of the issues
of interest to both countries.
b) Transition to private sector:
As you know, I am not a professional diplomat, but a businessman
like you. I am strongly committed to free trade as a means
of increasing prosperity and reducing poverty. And I further
feel that trade is more than trade –it is a path to
mutual understanding and peaceful interaction.
My administration is highly committed to
working with any partner that focuses on democracy, free
entrepreneurship and development of individuals. Through
trade, we and our partners in the hemisphere have dramatically
reshaped the economic dynamic in the region. Our free-trade
agreements with the Canada, Mexico, the Central American
Free Trade Area (CAFTA), Chile, Colombia, Dominican Republic,
Peru and Panamá —just to cite those in the
Western Hemisphere— have torn down old economic structures
and old ways of doing things. With our free trade agreement
partners, we are creating an environment in which new companies
can emerge and in which small and medium-sized enterprises
have a chance to develop.
c) The role of the private sector:
Governments can create an environment which is conducive
to business —that is their role. Successful entrepreneurs
like yourselves have at least two principal roles.
The first is working closely with your governments
on trade issues. Governments to governments work on tariff
and sanitary issues. The private sector can work with governments
on reducing impediments to trade by promoting concrete measures
to facilitate trade, like cutting non-tariff trade barriers
and removing red tape.
BASC is a good example of a private sector
organization seeking to instate global security standards
and procedures to facilitate international trade while making
it more secure and transparent.
Your second role as successful entrepreneurs
is commercial; seek markets, take chances, innovate, promote,
and make the deals that are at the heart of our growing
trade relationship.
The U.S. is a demanding market, but it is
also the largest one in the world and the one with the lowest
average import tariff. Every day, we import over 6 billion
dollars in goods and services; equivalent to Uruguay’s
annual exports of goods and services.
Those who want to sell in the U.S. must
study the market and adapt to it. To win business, the customer
has to come first. Exporters must produce products and services
of sustained homogeneous high quality at good prices, put
an emphasis on marketing strategies, and focus basically
on small and medium sized markets. The United States has
infinite markets to cater beyond the usual ones of Los Angeles,
New York, Chicago and Miami. It is advisable to focus on
smaller, less-known and demanding markets and then, if necessary,
work the way up to the traditional ones.
Remember: hope is not a strategy
and reality is an acquired taste.
Thank you very much.
(end text)
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