Mercosur postpones a meeting of ministers to define the future of the TEC

Without any sign of agreement, the Mercosur countries decided to postpone an extraordinary meeting of the Ministers of Economy and Foreign Affairs to decide on the future of the Common External Tariff (TEC), which was scheduled for June 8.

The meeting, to be held in Buenos Aires, was postponed to the second half of June.

The Jair Bolsonaro government wants a 20% cut in the bloc’s import tariffs. It would be a 10% reduction now and another 10% in December, across the board, without breaking down by sector. The economic team’s discourse intends to avoid a battle between the winners and losers of the unilateral opening. Uruguay supports the Brazilian position.

In return, Buenos Aires offered to zero out around 4,000 product groups (common nomenclatures in Mercosur). They are mainly intermediate goods (used as inputs in the production process) or finished goods that are not produced locally in Argentina. Today, the TEC is around 14% for industrial products.

Source: Valor Econômico

To read the full original article, access the link below:

https://valor.globo.com/brasil/noticia/2021/06/04/mercosul-adia-reunio-de-ministers-para-definir-futuro-da-tec.ghtml

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