President Luis Lacalle Pou revealed that Uruguay and Turkey started to negotiate the chance of a Free Trade Agreement (FTA), at a time when the president seeks to modify the rule that prevents members of Mercosur from negotiating agreements outside the bloc. “The chancellor (Francisco Bustillo) traveled to Turkey and the proposal was: we need to establish more commercial link“Lacalle Pou said in an interview with Channel 4 news, shortly before leaving for the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) to spend Christmas with the military contingent deployed in the African country on a peace mission.
“I tell you now and I say it to public opinion: We formally received the presentation of Turkey to initiate an FTA with Uruguay. Now an exploratory path opens. If we are satisfied, as of March we will begin to work towards an FTA with Turkey, “reported Lacalle Pou. The president added that Uruguay has an export of 500 million dollars, which represents almost one point of its Gross Domestic Product (GDP ), and assured that he can “play in the big leagues, because Uruguayans win in the big leagues.”
About negotiation with China, Lacalle Pou admitted that the estimate was “to end in December, (but) It does not end in December, but it will extend a littleAsked if he is open to studying an FTA with the United States as well as with China, the president appealed to a phrase that he had already used weeks ago: “Of course, the dream of the kid. China and the United States”.
However, Lacalle Pou considers that “Today the United States is not in that line” and “has other priorities.” The president left at noon on Thursday from Air Base 1, in Montevideo, after making the transfer of command with the vice president of the Republic, Beatriz Argimón, who in his absence became head of state.
On the talks with Turkey, Foreign Minister Francisco Bustillo He said that he informed Mercosur members about them and that “there were no surprises.” According to the newspaper The country, Bustillo stressed that “relations are still very good with any of the partners”, although he insisted that block negotiations “slow things down”.
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