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The EU seeks to accelerate strategic investments in Uruguay

The EU seeks to accelerate strategic investments in Uruguay

The block, the third destination for Uruguayan exports, aims at the 5G network, green hydrogen and infrastructure work.

Reuters.

In a relationship traversed by an agreement between the mercosur and the (EU) there’s still a long way to go, Uruguay has a fairly prosperous trade relationship with the European Union, led by prospects for trade in goods and services that reach the 6 million dollars and with the aim of investing in three important areas in the country, such as mobile technology for 5Ghe green hydrogen and infrastructures.

The counselor and head of the EU Economy and Trade sector in Uruguay, Damien Kaminski, He highlighted the good state of trade ties with the countries of the European bloc. According to the EU counselor, there is a prospect of trade in goods and services that is close to the 6 million dollars.

The main items to invest where the EU has the objective are green hydrogen, infrastructure and 5G where it is planned to work together with the government. kaminski He qualified that the EU is there “in a situation of competition”, he maintained that there is progress on green hydrogen, since the German company enertrag already announced an investment of 1,000 million dollars in the center of the country to produce it.

In addition, in infrastructure there was an investment from the Belgian Katoen Natie of 600 million dollars and in 5G technology there is a European proposal which, he said, may interest Uruguay.

Why is the relationship with the EU important?

According to the annual foreign trade report in 2022 of Uruguay XXI, the EU represented the 15% of total exports of goods of the country – unseating Brazil from its second position in the ranking – with $1.95 billion. During 2022, sales to the block grew by 22%, with pulp, beef and wood being the main goods exported.

In this same sense, the EU counselor stressed the importance of trade in services, which in 2021 set another record with around 1.8 billion dollars, and pointed out that Uruguay currently ranks fifth in European foreign direct investment within Latin America.

An agreement that does not advance

The agreement between the EU and Mercosur – an advance that would allow Uruguay to continue opening its relations with the bloc – concluded its negotiations in 2019 but has been on hold due to concerns, especially from France, about deforestation in the Amazon and the degree of commitment of Brazil to act against climate change.

In that sense, during the XXVIII Ibero-American Summit of Heads of State and GovernmentPresident Luis Lacalle Pou winked at the agreement and established the need to “make it known that the failures or frustrations of finish constituting these alliances It ends up frustrating the partners who were so optimistic at the beginning.”

Source: Ambito

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