Pacific Alliance engages in its fourth round of negotiations

The Pacific Alliance – a coalition formed by Chile, Colombia, Mexico, and Peru – engaged in its fourth round of negotiations from 12 to 18 May in Ottawa, Canada. Their aim is to confer an associate member status to Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and Singapore. Negotiations on the new status will seek to open and integrate markets among the nations involved, while creating trade rules in various subject areas. The third round of negotiations took place in March, when the countries finalised negotiations on three out of 23 technical areas: co-operation, small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), and regulatory improvement. Negotiations in Ottawa included trade in goods, trade facilitation, sanitary and phytosanitary measures, technical barriers to trade, public procurement, cross-border trade in services, electronic commerce, intellectual property rights, environment and labour protections.