ALCA - FTAA - ZLEA - Contributions from Civil Society

Public
FTAA.soc/civ/67
February 27, 2003

Original: Spanish
Translation: FTAA Secretariat

FTAA - COMMITTEE OF GOVERNMENT REPRESENTATIVES ON THE PARTICIPATION OF
CIVIL SOCIETY

CONTRIBUTION IN RESPONSE TO THE OPEN AND ONGOING INVITATION

Name(s)	Rafael Ángel Ramírez González
Organization(s)	Comité de Zonas Francas de las Américas [Customs-Free Zones of the Americas Committee]
País	Costa Rica

Submitted by: The Customs-Free Zones of the Americas Committee (CZFA), a non-governmental, non-profit, non-political organization that supports customs-free zones in Latin America, from Mexico to Argentina

Negotiating Group: Market Access

Topic: Goods manufactured in customs-free zones should receive, through mechanisms that harmonize the existing incentives, the benefits of the tariff elimination programs accorded under the FTAA and, given the complexity of the topic and of the different systems operating in the various FTAA customs-free zones, the Tripartite Committee needs to study the topic further.

Rationale: Business representatives from the Customs-Free Zones sector of countries in Central America, the Caribbean, and South America, at a meeting during the VII Business Forum of the Americas held in Quito, Ecuador, consider that:

Customs-Free Zones are effective tools that generate employment and welfare in our countries. They allow for the creation, in our very own cities and regions, of the growth and economic development opportunities that the population needs, thus preventing migration to other latitudes.
It is imperative that countries in the Americas contemplate instruments and mechanisms to promote and conserve both domestic and foreign investment related to the manufacturing of products for external markets, with the corresponding impact on generating employment and development.
Most international foreign trade agreements, among them the World Trade Organization (WTO), the European Economic Community (EEC), and the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), provide for and accept the origin of goods produced in customs-free zones, to which end its incentives were harmonized after a transitional period had elapsed.
Most countries in the Americas have a free zone mechanism in place, and a high percentage of their manufactured products, services, and logistical operations targeted both to international and domestic markets, depend to varying degrees on that mechanism, as the case may be.
The basic objective of free zones is to promote value added and foreign trade in both goods and services; this objective is fully consistent with those of the FTAA.


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