Canada is to open trade talks next month with the four-nation Mercosur trading bloc in South America as part of an ongoing push to diversify its trade partnerships, a senior official said on Friday.
The move comes as Canada’s main trading relationship with the US — the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) — falters, and after Ottawa announced it would sign on to the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP).
“We intend to open negotiations for a potential agreement with Mercosur in Paraguay the day after the signing of the TPP, which will take place in Chile on March 8,” the official said.
In addition to Paraguay, the bloc includes Argentina, Brazil and Uruguay.
Canada currently trades about Can$8 billion (US$6 billion) annually with the Mercosur bloc, which is the second-largest in the hemisphere after the NAFTA.
This is dwarfed by bilateral Canada-US trade, which topped C$780 billion (US$621 billion) last year, with 70 percent of Canadian exports going to its southern neighbor, according to Canadian government figures.
US PROTECTIONISM
However, after six rounds of “slow” talks to revamp NAFTA, which Washington has threatened to dump, the future of Canada’s preferential access to the US market is now in doubt, with the parties deadlocked over Washington’s hardening protectionist stance.
Canada already has free-trade deals with several South American nations including Mexico, Colombia, Peru and Chile.
Mercosur membership would give it greater access to eastern South America and its biggest economies, with a total of 260 million consumers.
Ottawa had initially balked at joining the TPP last year, acting as the main holdout in negotiations after US President Donald Trump decided in early last year to go it alone under his “America First” policy.
However, it did an about-face last month as the prospects of a new NAFTA deal appeared to dim.
Among the sticking points in the NAFTA negotiations are Washington’s demands for a “sunset clause” after five years, and for more US auto parts in vehicles sold in North America.
To many, Tatu City on the outskirts of Nairobi looks like a success. The first city entirely built by a private company to be operational in east Africa, with about 25,000 people living and working there, it accounts for about two-thirds of all foreign investment in Kenya. Its low-tax status has attracted more than 100 businesses including Heineken, coffee brand Dormans, and the biggest call-center and cold-chain transport firms in the region. However, to some local politicians, Tatu City has looked more like a target for extortion. A parade of governors have demanded land worth millions of dollars in exchange
An Indonesian animated movie is smashing regional box office records and could be set for wider success as it prepares to open beyond the Southeast Asian archipelago’s silver screens. Jumbo — a film based on the adventures of main character, Don, a large orphaned Indonesian boy facing bullying at school — last month became the highest-grossing Southeast Asian animated film, raking in more than US$8 million. Released at the end of March to coincide with the Eid holidays after the Islamic fasting month of Ramadan, the movie has hit 8 million ticket sales, the third-highest in Indonesian cinema history, Film
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co’s (TSMC, 台積電) revenue jumped 48 percent last month, underscoring how electronics firms scrambled to acquire essential components before global tariffs took effect. The main chipmaker for Apple Inc and Nvidia Corp reported monthly sales of NT$349.6 billion (US$11.6 billion). That compares with the average analysts’ estimate for a 38 percent rise in second-quarter revenue. US President Donald Trump’s trade war is prompting economists to retool GDP forecasts worldwide, casting doubt over the outlook for everything from iPhone demand to computing and datacenter construction. However, TSMC — a barometer for global tech spending given its central role in the
Alchip Technologies Ltd (世芯), an application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC) designer specializing in server chips, expects revenue to decline this year due to sagging demand for 5-nanometer artificial intelligence (AI) chips from a North America-based major customer, a company executive said yesterday. That would be the first contraction in revenue for Alchip as it has been enjoying strong revenue growth over the past few years, benefiting from cloud-service providers’ moves to reduce dependence on Nvidia Corp’s expensive AI chips by building their own AI accelerator by outsourcing chip design. The 5-nanometer chip was supposed to be a new growth engine as the lifecycle
RSS