Tourism Industry
Healthy
According to a study done
by the Cámara Nacional de Turismo (Canatur), the
first quarter of 2004 showed good results for the
tourism industry, compared to the same period last
year.
Canatur's results show that 55% of their associates responded
having had a good quarter. This includes hotels, tour operators, car rentals
and airlines.
The report also points out that 22% the period was not as good or favourable
as in similar periods, while the rest, 23%, didn't see any significant
change.
Wílliam Rodríguez, president of Canatur, gives two major reasons for the
increase in tourism. The first, is due to an increase in Americans visiting
Costa Rica given the upward rise in the Euro against the U.S. Dollar has
made Europe expensive for many.
The other reason, more than 100 weekly flights were added to their schedules
by the airlines, which also saw a significant drop in airfares.
In the past six months, a fare of less that $200 return from Miami was
common. A flight from New York where it cost as much as $900 a year ago,
could go for less than $500.
The best month was March, according to the report.
The increase in tourism is expected to be sustained throught 2004. New jobs
in the industry were created in the last few months. This is a positive sign
that the industry is healthy.
Regional Free
Trade Looks Shaky
Despite the decade long success of the North
American Free Trade Agreement, regional treaties are stalled for now,
experts said Friday.
The pact between the United States, Mexico and Canada helped boost each
nation's exports, trade experts said during the University of Houston's
"NAFTA at 10" conference.
NAFTA proved that "the United States really can have free trade with a
developing country and benefit from it," said Gary Clyde Hufbauer, a trade
expert with the Washington, D.C.-based Institute for International
Economics.
But similar agreements, such as the Central American Free Trade Agreement
and the Free Trade Area of the Americas, have little political support in
the United States or developing nations, panelists said.
A comprehensive Free Trade Area of the Americas agreement, which would
create a trading bloc involving every country from Canada to Argentina -
except for Cuba - seems far off, said David Gantz, professor and director of
the International Trade Law Center at the University of Arizona.
And it seems unlikely that Congress will consider passage of the Central
American Free Trade Agreement, or CAFTA, this year, avoiding the issue
during the presidential campaign.
"CAFTA is almost certainly not going to go up just because of the
opposition," Gantz said.
Sugar growers, environmentalists and labor unions have voiced their
opposition to the agreement between the United States and Costa Rica, the
Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras and Nicaragua.
Approval of that pact became more unlikely after two of the six Central
American partners — the Dominican Republic and Honduras — pulled troops out
of Iraq recently, Gantz said.
Ever since last year's failed World Trade Organization meeting in Cancun,
when developing countries like Brazil pitted themselves against developed
nations, the Bush administration has shifted its focus from global pacts to
regional ones.
But the biggest dispute in negotiating the Free Trade Area of the Americas
is U.S. farm subsidies. Leaders of developing nations like Brazil don't want
to compete against U.S.-supported farmers.
"The FTAA may just wither away," Gantz said.
Latin America Returning to Forefront of Agriculture and Biotechnology
It is that time of year when farmers in the United States are starting to
prepare their fields and ready to plant this year's crops, be they the
old-time favorites or the new genetically modified crops.
There is a battle over biotechnology in other countries.
Many of the fruits, vegetables and other foods that we buy in the
supermarkets come from around the world.
What do we know about these crops and the foods we are eating?
A little history lesson: By the 1500s, the Incas of Peru had constructed a
highly sophisticated, state-supported agricultural system. On steep mountain
terraces bound by stone walls and irrigated by canals, they farmed crops
then unknown to the Europeans — tomatoes, potatoes, oca, peppers — and in
the low lands they grew corn and cotton.
From wild crops they produced new genetic strains that produced harvests
bountiful enough to feed an empire. In the Andean Mountains even a couple of
meters change in altitude makes a difference in the climate — so by changing
the altitude at which they raised a crop they could adapt it to a different
climate.
This was biotechnology as advanced as a Stone Age people could perfect it.
Brazil and the United States have embraced
Recent developments suggest that biotechnology may be heading toward greater
acceptance in Latin America. Brazil, Colombia, Costa Rica, Ecuador,
Peru, Mexico and Venezuela in 2002 all signed the Cancun Declaration of
Like-Minded Mega-diverse Countries, along with China, India, Indonesia,
Kenya and South Africa.
The declaration recognizes "the urgent need to develop human resources,
institutional capabilities, as well as an appropriate legal framework and
public policies, to enable our countries to take an active part in the new
economy associated with the use of biological diversity, genetic resources
and biotechnology."
Not everyone has jumped on the bandwagon. The European Union initially
accepted imports of genetically modified corn and soy from the United States
until a major consumer backlash prompted a five-year moratorium on any new
varieties starting in 1998. The British newspaper, The Guardian, reported
threats of civil unrest if genetically modified crops were planted in
Britain.
For the United States, the European standoff on genetically modified foods
is significant in its own right, but it also affects other countries around
the world. Zambia, for example, made international headlines in 2002 when
its government rejected donations of genetically modified corn as food from
the United States out of fear that it might "poison" its citizens and
jeopardize its trade relations with Europe.
U.S.,
Australia to Sign Free-Trade Deal
The United States and Australia on May 18 plan to sign a
free-trade agreement, setting the stage for a congressional vote before this
year's election.
U.S. Trade Representative Robert B. Zoellick yesterday announced the
Australia signing date and the start of talks with two new countries, Peru
and Ecuador, also in May.
"President Bush is relentless in continuing the drive for free trade," Mr.
Zoellick said yesterday when making the Peru and Ecuador announcement. Mr.
Zoellick has completed or is working on a series of negotiations that would
more than triple the number of countries that have bilateral trade pacts
with the United States.
Negotiations began last week with Panama, and are continuing this week with
five southern African nations. Colombia will be packaged with the two other
Andean nations, and Thailand and Bahrain also are in the works.
Australia, Morocco and five Central American nations - Costa Rica, El
Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras and Nicaragua - as well as the Dominican
Republic, have completed negotiations. The pacts await formal signatures and
approval from lawmakers.
The 19 nations collectively account for about 4.7 percent of total U.S.
trade, according to the General Accounting Office.
The two largest potential agreements -- with the 147 member World Trade
Organization and among 34 Western Hemisphere nations negotiating a Free
Trade Area of the Americas -- are behind schedule and not on track for
completion by end-of-year deadlines.
Congress last year easily approved agreements with Chile and Singapore, but
the election-year atmosphere has made any votes this year less certain.
Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry, the presumptive Democratic nominee for
president, has attacked Bush administration trade policy in general, and the
Central American agreement as weak on enforcement for labor rights and
environmental protection.
The Central American deal is unlikely to make it to the House or Senate
floor because of uncertain prospects.
But the Bush administration and some Republican leaders in Congress are
pushing for a vote on Australia and perhaps Morocco. Despite a handful of
vocal opponents, Australia has the best chances of winning approval this
year, while Morocco has gained little attention and little opposition.
"I think both of these are winnable," said Bill Reinsch, president of the
National Foreign Trade Council, a business lobby that supports the
agreements.
House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Bill Thomas, California Republican,
last week said chances of a vote on Australia this year are "very high." Mr.
Thomas' committee has jurisdiction over trade matters.
Under Trade Promotion Authority won by President Bush in August 2002, the
agreements will go to Congress for a yes or no vote, with no amendments
allowed.
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