Pacific Alliance members aim for free trade in 10 years

LIMA, May 23 (Xinhua) -- The Pacific Alliance (PA), which groups Chile, Colombia, Mexico and Peru, has set the goal of achieving a 100 percent tax release for original products in the next 10 years, Peru's Deputy Foreign Minister Fernando Rojas said Thursday.

The bloc's four member countries are working towards that goal, based on the free trade agreements (FTA) among them.

The four countries are aiming to reduce tax of some 90 percent of these products in the short term, while the rest 10 percent will be done in the goal time, Rojas was quoted by Peru's official news agency Andina as saying.

The Peruvian official said this issue is being discussed by the presidents of the member countries at the ongoing seventh PA Summit in the Colombian city of Cali.

The PA is among the ten largest economies in the world, representing 35 percent of Latin America's gross domestic product (GDP) and has a combined population of 215 million people.

Last year the bloc's exports were of 570 billion U.S. dollars in goods and services, almost 50 percent of the total exports of Latin America and the Caribbean.

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