Ecuador's Minister of Foreign Trade Pablo Campana. (Photo: Ministerio de Relaciones Exteriores)

Ecuador formalizes interest in joining Pacific Alliance

MEXICO
Tuesday, June 19, 2018, 22:00 (GMT + 9)

The Government of Ecuador officially requested the Pacific Alliance to begin a rapprochement process, informed Secretary of Foreign Affairs of Mexico Luis Videgaray.

The announcement was made last Friday, at the end of a meeting of the Council of Ministers of the Alliance held in Mexico City, chaired by Colombia, to prepare the summit of presidents that will take place on July 23 and 24 in Puerto Vallarta.

On May 30, Ecuador's Minister of Foreign Trade Pablo Campana revealed the decision to join the Pacific Alliance, a regional integration initiative in which Ecuador currently acts as an observer.

"We have to strengthen relations with Mexico. If we do not have commercial agreements with all the members of the Pacific Alliance, we can hardly be part of it, but we are moving in that direction," said the Ecuadorian minister.

The Mexican foreign minister also reported that the United Arab Emirates, Belarus and Serbia requested to integrate the Pacific Alliance as observers, "which shows that (the bloc) continues to arouse interest in the world community." The Council of Ministers approved these requests so that now there are 55 countries that have the status of Observer State.

The Pacific Alliance was born seven years ago as an economic and development initiative between four Latin American nations with coasts in the Pacific - Chile, Colombia, Mexico and Peru - and since then it has become the axis of a new way of doing business in the continent.

The Pacific Alliance concentrates 50 per cent of Latin America's trade with the world and 38 per cent of Latin America's gross domestic product (GDP).

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