Foreign Minister Jorge Faurie formalized the announcement of the City of Santa Fe as the venue for the next Summit of Heads of State of MERCOSUR and Associated States, to be held in July 2019.
During the presentation ceremony at the San Martín Palace, the Foreign Minister was accompanied by the mayor of the city of Santa Fe, José Corral; and by the Secretary of International Relations and Integration of that Province, María Julia Reyna; in addition to other provincial and municipal authorities, and legislators.
Faurie said that holding the Summit in Santa Fe has “a double value” for him, since “on the one hand, as a Santa Fe resident, I am very proud that my city and my province receive the presidents and delegations of the member states of MERCOSUR” and, on the other hand, he stressed that “it reinforces the federal sense of our integration process.”
"Santa Fe has enormous opportunities and great potential, as well as an industrial development that is very important within MERCOSUR," Faurie said.
Openness and dynamism to Mercosur
The Minister explained that Argentina is exercising the pro tempore Presidency of the bloc in this semester of 2019 “in a context of challenges, but also of opportunities, which must always be articulated with the permanent search for concrete results for our citizens.”
In this regard, he highlighted "the dynamic vocation for openness that the bloc gained since 2016, promoting the negotiation of trade agreements, such as those being negotiated today with the European Union, but also with Canada, the EFTA countries and Singapore,” and recalled that “we have opened negotiations with Korea and we want to do the same with Japan.”
Faurie also said that "there is an urgent need to give greater dynamism to MERCOSUR." and that “the work for insertion in the world together with our partners must have economic and social development as its goal.” “This is what our people are asking of us,” he added.
“MERCOSUR has been and continues to be key in consolidating the region as a generator of development and business and employment opportunities for its inhabitants: Santa Fe will be one more step in this direction,” he concluded.
For his part, Mayor Corral assured that “Santa Fe is ready to receive the Heads of State” next July, and underlined the “strategy of transforming that city into the venue of large meetings and important events of international significance,” which results in employment, infrastructure and economic benefits.
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