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FTAA.ngcp/com/14
November 14, 2001

Original: Spanish
Translation: FTAA Secretariat

PRESS COMMUNIQUÉ

1. The Fourteenth Meeting of the Negotiating Group on Competition Policy (NGCP) was held in Panama on November 12-14, 2001. Representatives of 21 countries of the Hemisphere were in attendance:
    

   Argentina		Guatemala
   Bahamas		Honduras
   Bolivia		México
   Brazil		Panama
   Canada		Paraguay
   Chile		Peru
   Colombia		Trinidad and Tobago
   Costa Rica		United States
   Dominican Republic		Uruguay
   Ecuador		Venezuela
   El Salvador

2. The discussions in the meeting followed the agenda below , which included work on the following issues:
    
   • Following the Mandate of the Declaration of Buenos Aires, the delegations focused on eliminating the brackets from articles 3.5 to 3.7, 7.2 and 5 of the Draft Chapter on Competition Policy, relating to Institutional Provisions, Competition Policy Review Mechanism, Consultations and Dispute Settlement, and Confidentiality
     
     
   • In response to the questions of the Smaller Economies and Countries without Competition Policy, the delegations of Costa Rica and the United States each made a presentation on Questions 1 and 2 of the document "Proposal by Smaller Economies and Countries without Competition Law”
     
     
   • Similarly, the Andean Community made a presentation on its experience with its common competition regime, by way of response to Question 3 of the document “Proposal by Smaller Economies and Countries without Competition Law”
      

   • In addition, the NGCP worked on a format for presentation the Report to the TNC, on the Proposal of the Smaller Economies and Countries without Competition Law