President Enrique Peña Nieto received Paraguayan President Horacio Cartes Jara in the National Palace Friday.
After the official ceremony, the two presidents met in private to sign an agreement regarding seven different areas of bilateral relations, including health, security and communication.
In order to facilitate commerce, the two countires made an agreement to update the Partial Scope Agreement 38 underwritten in the 1983 Economic Complementation Agreement.
“Today we have together both presidents in hopes to update our bilateral relationship. In this visit we are signing nine accords that we believe will strengthen our relations,” said Peña Nieto. “Regarding commerce and economic relations, we have proposed to go beyond the Partial Scope Agreement 38 that has governed our economic relationship for more than 33 years and that is currently insufficient for truly promoting development.”
Peña Nieto added than in the last ten years, commerce between the two countries has grown from $36 million to $224 million. He said that the reduction of tariffs would facilitate more growth.
“We truly believe that this economic relationship has a lot of potential,” Peña Nieto added.
Paraguyan President Cartes Jara agreed that his country believes that their relationship with Mexico is very important and that they have found ways to encourage mutual growth.
“Our governments are ready to make our economic relationship stronger and encourage diverse commerce and to increase investment and equitable development,” Carte Jara said.
He noted that scientific and technological collaboration is key for development and added that included in the agreement are solutions to combat organized crime internationally.
The presidents closed the official ceremony with a dinner in the National Palace where they reiterated their desire to work together and facilitate development.
CARMEN GUDIÑO