17:19 | Cali (Colombia), Jun. 30.
Entering into partnership with the Pacific Alliance will bring mutual benefit to both players, said New Zealand's Foreign Affairs Minister Gerry Brownlee as he underscored the synergies shared with the trading bloc.
"Existing synergies showed the Alliance's ability to admit other countries, and here we are now. But that doesn't mean we share an agenda with each founding member; we pursue negotiations with the bloc as a whole, instead. That's the way international trade is conducted nowadays," he pointed out.
New Zealand, in its capacity as food producing country, is pleased to partner with other food exporting countries, Brownlee said in a press conference.
"If we join efforts to improve the quality of our food products, we are going to open the way to larger markets around the world […]," he was quoted as saying.
He referred to New Zealand's sharing of technological and agricultural knowledge with Latin American countries, and hopes it will continue to do so.
In addition to New Zealand, Australia, Canada, and Singapore have also gained an
Associate State status in the Pacific Alliance —a regional integrative initiative including Chile, Colombia, Mexico and Peru.
Collectively, the Pacific Alliance countries are the eighth largest economy in the world. The bloc was founded by the Lima Declaration in Peru on 28 April 2011.
(END) VVS/JCC/RMB
Published: 6/30/2017