• Submitted by: admin
• International
• South America
• Business and Economy
• Politics and Government
• 08 / 27 / 2007

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Being an ALADI member has allowed us to improve the preferential access of our exports to the markets of the region, get better conditions for the inputs we need, and create an atmosphere of trust and understanding in our trade relations with the member countries, the diplomat said.

She added that within the association, Cuba has boosted the approval of strategic guidelines leading to the true complementation of the economies, cooperation, productive development and the participation of labor and entrepreneurial sectors in the integration process.

Ruiz, who is also Cuba's ambassador to Uruguay, told Prensa Latina that her country joined the ALADI eight years ago, after being an observer for one year.

However, as early as 1984, she pointed out, we had already signed preferential agreements with some member countries. The accords were adjusted later to the 1980 Montevideo Agreement (by virtue of which the ALADI was founded).

Ruiz noted Cuba's support for the Special and Differentiated Treatment to the least developed countries and the island's actions to reduce asymmetries of their economies in relation with the other member countries.

Cuba, she stressed, has a strong integrationist vocation, as an everlasting legacy from previous generations that predicted Latin America's unity as the only way to counter the voracity of the powerful.

The Cuban diplomat said that "despite the efforts made by successive US administrations to isolate us, today we share with 11 countries (those that make up the ALADI ) the dream of a united Latin America."

The ambassador regretted the disastrous consequences of Washington-sponsored "free trade".

That's why, she concluded, we understand that the creation of a common market in the region will have to be based not only on the liberalization of tariffs, but also in the elimination of the conditions that prevent trade from being an expression of the people's development, instead of an expression of those who rule.