BRAZIL REITERATES SIGNIFICANCE OF MERCOSUR AND STRATEGIC RELATION WITH ARGENTINA

São Paulo, March 23- Brazil reaffirmed the significance of Mercosur for President Dilma Rousseff administration’s foreign policy and underlined the strategic relation with Argentina, Brazil’s main associate in the trade block.

Speaking with foreign correspondents ahead of Saturday’s 20th anniversary of Mercosur, Brazil’s Foreign Affairs minister Antonio Patriota said that for Brazil, “South America was central and in particular Mercosur and inside Mercosur, Argentina that has become a pillar for our regional relations”.

The Asunción Treaty which is the founding block for the Common Market of the South, Mercosur was signed 26 March 1991 in Asuncion, Paraguay with Argentina, Brazil, Uruguay and Paraguay as full members.

Patriota recalled that in the last Mercosur summit at the Brazilian city of Foz de Iguazu, “we were able to verify the degree of development of Mercosur members’ economies and the growing interest that Mercosur attracts internationally”.

“The economies from Argentina, Brazil and Uruguay expanded 8% during 2010, while Paraguay soared 14%. There is no doubt about the importance Brazil attributes to Paraguay, and we are preparing the visit, tentatively, sometime mid May, of President Dilma Rousseff to Asunción” underlined Patriota.

In support of his words Patriota recalled that the first overseas visit of President Rousseff was to Argentina, last 31 January when she met with her peer Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner. President Rousseff accomplished her purpose of “a direct personal contact with Mrs Kirchner, at a moment of intense economic, commercial and political relations in the framework of strengthening Mercosur and the project of a regional union”.

Patriota also expressed his satisfaction with the coming into effect of the Unasur treaty, Union of South American Nations last March 11, culminating an effort of several years to establish the bases for “a South American effective cooperation and integration with deep roots in common objectives”.

Unasur according to Patriota will boost physical integration, trade, finances and joint energy projects plus the social and inclusion programs that help to consolidate the region as a “zone of peace, cooperation, democracy, growing prosperity with social inclusion and justice”.

Since taking office last January first as Foreign Affairs minister, Patriota has met with the presidents from Argentina, Paraguay, Uruguay, Colombia, Venezuela and next Friday flies to Bolivia to meet Evo Morales.

<