Chilean Representative of the Foreign Ministry Carlos Furche on Thursday urged Latin America to promote regional integration and raise economic exchanges with countries from the Asia-Pacific region.
At the two-day 4th ministerial meeting of the Latin American Pacific Arch (ARCO) in Santiago, Furche cited the example of European Union (EU), where 60 percent of the economic exchanges are done inside the bloc.
"We need to improve the integration of Latin America as a wide economic space," said Furche, who is also Chilean representative in ARCO.
ARCO was founded by Colombia, Chile, Mexico, Peru, Costa Rica, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua and Panama.
Furche said that in the case of the Common Market of the South (Mercosur), formed by Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay, Uruguay in 1991,only 18.6 percent of trade were done in the region.
All Latin American nations had increased their exports to Asia-Pacific, but only Chile and Peru had a trade surplus, Furche noted.
Furche said the current international financial crisis would not affect Chile because of the different export destinations. In 2007, 40 percent of the Chilean exports were to Asia and 25 percent to the EU.
Source:Xinhua
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