14 August 2008
Free Trade Boosts Americas’ Competitiveness in Global Market
August 17-19 Atlanta event promotes retention of jobs in region
Washington -- The countries of the Americas can improve their global competitiveness and raise standards of living throughout the Western Hemisphere by engaging in free-trade partnerships and cooperation, says U.S. Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez.
Gutierrez, briefing reporters on the second annual Americas Competitiveness Forum scheduled for August 17-19 in Atlanta, said discussion at the meeting will center on the importance of free trade and how exports drive economies. Participants at the meeting, he said, will focus on how the hemisphere can be more competitive in the global marketplace through policies and strategies that promote the region’s development and economic growth.
The more than 1,000 people from more than 20 countries at the event will “bring forward lessons, things they have done that have made them more competitive,” Gutierrez said August 11. “So it’s really a place to learn from other countries. As opposed to just learning from one country, everyone is learning from everyone else.”
The forum will allow participants to exchange ideas on how to improve opportunities in such areas as alliances in business and education, renewable energy and sustainable resources, and travel and tourism in the Americas, said Gutierrez, who will host the event.
While free trade is important for U.S. relations with the rest of the Americas, Gutierrez said, the relationship “is bigger than just free-trade agreements.” Many countries coming to the Atlanta forum do not have free-trade pacts with the United States.
Meeting planners recognize, Gutierrez said, that jobs that leave a country in the Western Hemisphere often do not go to another country in the region, but rather to another part of the world. If that fact is understood, he said, “then you see the importance of looking for opportunities to be more competitive in the hemisphere. One way is free trade, but there are a lot of other ways as well.”
WORLD ECONOMIES UNDERGOING TRANSFORMATION
Deborah Wince-Smith, president of the nongovernmental, nonpartisan, Washington-based Council on Competitiveness, told America.gov that a focus of the meeting should be on how to “build an integrated, high-performing economy in the Americas that delivers prosperity for more and more people.”
Wince-Smith, who will participate in the Atlanta event, said the United States, like all countries, is undergoing a “tremendous transformation” in its economy.
“We’re competing not just within the Americas, or between countries, we’re competing with the entire global economy,” Wince-Smith said. “And while we’re waiting to build in the Americas high-performing skilled work forces, having talented people that are educated to compete, the rest of the world” is already moving ahead in its business growth.
Wince-Smith says she wants countries in the Americas to create “high-performance economies,” which “depend on the talent of our people, the investments we make,” and an infrastructure for trade.
Previously, the large U.S. economy, its domestic markets and its domestic business enterprises offered Americans independence and insulation from the world’s troubles, Wince-Smith said.
But that has changed, with the United States connected through global enterprises, global markets and global supply chains and international companies diversifying around the world to manufacture and sell their products, she said.
She expressed great optimism about the “tremendous activity and growth” occurring in such South American nations as Colombia and Peru. But the real success story is Brazil, Wince-Smith said. She praised Brazil for achieving energy independence, a booming market in initial stock offerings to the public, and corporate growth, with global Brazilian enterprises investing in the United States.
In 2009, Wince-Smith said, her organization, as part of its commitment to strengthen the U.S. “strategic partnership” with Brazil, will host a U.S.-Brazil Innovation Summit in Washington, building on a similar conference held in Brasilia, Brazil, in July 2007 that addressed an array of competitiveness issues, including economic resilience, sustainable energy, entrepreneurship and job creation. (See “Remarks at the U.S.-Brazil Innovation Summit.”)
REFORM KEY TO MAKING LATIN AMERICA COMPETITIVE
Jerry Haar, professor of management and international business at Florida International University in Miami, told America.gov that the “single most important thing the U.S. government can do to make Latin America more competitive in the global market” is to support “institutional and infrastructure reform” in telecommunications, shipping, education, judicial and tax policies and public administration.
Haar, who also will participate in the Atlanta forum, said the failure by Congress to pass pending free-trade pacts with Colombia and Panama is not hurting Latin America “so much as it is hurting U.S. companies and workers whose export opportunities would be far greater were our trading partners to lower their tariff and nontariff barriers as required” by such agreements.
Haar called the free-trade pacts the “cherry on top of the cake -- they are not the cake itself. Life goes on, trade goes on,” even if “efficient and well-managed companies with first-rate products and services and a loyal customer base can surely benefit from” a free-trade agreement.
See more on the Atlanta forum on the Commerce Department Web site.
A transcript of the Gutierrez briefing is available on America.gov.
