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REGIONAL PRESIDENTS UNIFY AGAINST GUATEMALA IN BID FOR TRADE.

Article Excerpt
With the curtain about to fall on a year that is now officially the worst, economically, in decades for Latin America, Central American presidents took center stage in San Jose, Costa Rica, to perform the finale, the XXII Cumbre de Jefes de Estado y Presidentes de Centroamerica. The opening act was relegated to the ministers of foreign affairs and economy, who hammered out the final touches on the Free Trade Agreement (FTA) accords that the presidents would later sign.

"One of the principal themes is the Free Trade Agreement with the United States, and how we have moved forward on it," said El Salvador's Economy Minister Miguel Lacayo. This was their last chance before the official start of negotiations with the US (see NotiCen, 2002-11-14).

This year's summit is playing out against a somber backdrop painted by the World Bank (WB). The bank's year-end report said that Argentina's economic crisis was the pathogen that caused Latin America its most severe contractions in the last 20 years. Regional prospects for 2003 were equally gloomy, with the possibility of a world recession on the horizon. Taken as a whole, GDP fell 1.1% in Latin America in 2002. The bright...

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