|
LIMA, Oct. 1-- Latin America's Pacific Alliance is looking to do away with non-tariff obstacles to trade between its members Chile, Colombia, Mexico and Peru, according to a top Peruvian businessman. The president of the Peruvian chapter of the trade bloc's Business Council, Mario Mongilardi, said the measure aims to boost the flow of trade, people and services between members of the five-year-old organization. "We are at a stage in which we have to remove the non-tariff barriers, such as registries, prior permits and licenses, which are interfering with the trade flow," Mongilardi told Xinhua. "We already have a free trade agreement" between bloc members, he said, so what needs to be done now is to standardize and streamline regulations and regulatory bodies overseeing such issues as food safety and sanitation. "Today, what we want is to have a single sanitary registry, for example, that can be applied in all four bloc partners," said Mongilardi, who is also president of the Lima Chamber of Commerce. Tariff barriers are not an issue, since they are at acceptable levels and need no adjustment, he said. "Free trade agreements have always tended to eliminate tariff trade barriers, but the reality is that in the modern world these tariff barriers no longer exist," he said. In the past two decades, tariffs have fallen significantly, but other obstacles to trade persist, he said. | 
