Peruvian press highlights the work of COPLA

The most important newspapers from Peru pointed out as a trade policy mistake the lowering of custom taxes to stop the rise in inflation registered in the country in the last months. This is especially relevant in the context of the free trade agreement (TLC for its acronym in Spanish) that Peru has recently signed with the United States.

Evidence gathered in multiple studies and based in the work of COPLA demonstrates that the positive impact of free trade agreements doesn’t derive from lowering customs but from the increase in the rate of exportations, increase that has already been registered since the former free trade agreement with the US, the Andean Trade Preferences and Drug Eradication Act (ATPDEA). Now with the TLC, if important policy decisions are not made, the negative impact of vulnerable sectors in rural agriculture could come to US$ 158 million.

This information was made public in the press conference that the COPLA team, together with the Overseas Development Institute (ODI) gave on March 27th in Lima, Peru. Written media of the country also highlighted Nicola Jones’ declarations about the absence of policies designed to protect the employment and work conditions in sme’s, of women and of young people regarding the TLC, making them the “the forgotten in free trade agreements” as the newspaper ‘El Comercio’ titled in its March 28th edition.

This meeting with the media was programmed in the context of the III regional meeting of COPLA that took place between the 25th and 28th of March. During the meeting, the national teams from Bolivia, Nicaragua and Peru made important agreements regarding the research they undertake to gather evidence to make trade work in favor of the poor as well as the strategies to influence public policy in each of their countries. Regarding policy changes, the III regional meeting included a workshop on political incidence for the associates of the Economic and Social Research Consortium (CIES in Spanish) of Peru. The workshop was directed by Enrique Mendizabal from ODI, the institution coordinating COPLA’s work in the region.

There was also a public event called ‘TLC: opportunities and challenges for the social inclusion’ where specialists, decision makers and the general public attended massively.