“I am telling you now and I am telling public opinion, we formally received Turkey’s presentation to initiate an FTA with Uruguay, starting in March. Now an exploratory path is opening, if it satisfies us, starting in March we begin to work towards an FTA with Turkey “, informed the president.
He added that Uruguay has an export of 500 million dollars, which represents almost one point of its Gross Domestic Product (GDP), and assured that it can “play in the big leagues, because Uruguayans win in the big leagues.”
“At the same time we have been negotiating with China. We thought it was going to end in December, (but) it doesn’t end in December. That is a date set by the ambassador and the Chinese government, we are going to extend it a little bit, “he explained, referring to the process of negotiating a similar agreement with the Asian country.
Asked if he is open to studying an FTA with the United States as well as with China, Lacalle replied: “Of course, the kid’s dream. China and the United States“.
However, the president expressed that he considers that “today the United States is not in that line” and that “it has other priorities”, so we have to wait and see “what conversations we can have.”
“The United States buys many things from us. It is an important trading partner. From memory, I think it is 6% of our foreign trade, China is 37%, Brazil I think it’s 16%, “he said, adding that” here it is not about friendship with the governments or anything like it, here it is the national interests of trading. “
The president left this Thursday from Air Base 1, in Montevideo, after making the transfer of command with the vice president of the Republic, Beatriz Argimon, who in his absence becomes head of state.
In DRC there are a total of 800 troops from the armed contingent of the Army, including observers and United Nations personnel and another 80 members in the case of the Air Force.
It is a lightning visit: he will spend the night of the 24th and in the afternoon he will return to Montevideo.
The Uruguayan forces have already served 20 years in the DRC, because they have been since the beginning of the UN peacekeeping mission, arranged after the end of the so-called Second Congo War, also known as the Coltan War.
Started in 1999, the chaotic conflict involved Congolese militias and troops from several countries in the region, and although it ended in 2003, there was no clear winner and the crisis, tension and hostility persist.
Source From: Ambito
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