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Trade Negotiators Praise Miami for Fine Hospitality

Posted on: Monday, 1 August 2005, 18:00 CDT

Aug. 1--Unlike the 2003 Free Trade Area of the Americas ministerial meeting in Miami when local police efforts to quell demonstrators came in for criticism, the city recently showed it can host free trade negotiations without a hitch.

As trade officials from three South American countries and the United States wrapped up a week of bargaining in Miami in mid-July, the negotiators were lavish with their praise for Miami's hospitality. The weeklong round in Miami was the best organized of any of the Andean talks carried out by the United States, everyone agreed.

No one officially offered any details on snafus at past talks, but reporters who covered them explained why the negotiators from Colombia, Ecuador, Peru and the United States were so pleased about the time they spent at the Hotel InterContinental in downtown Miami.

Hurricane Ivan bedeviled the fourth round of the U.S.-Andean free trade talks held in Fajardo, Puerto Rico, last September 13-17. The island cut power because of the storm, halting some negotiations because neither computers nor the equipment for simultaneous translations worked. Some participants were forced to sleep on cots and those staying in distant hotels could not even make it to the talks.

No hurricane or other disaster hit the sixth round of talks in Tucson, Ariz., in early December last year. But reporters said the press facilities were located far from where the negotiations were taking place. Business advisors were put in a room with a concrete floor that did not even have carpeting.

In contrast, said journalists, the three South American countries participating in the talks put on a good spread when they're hosts for the Andean talks.

In Miami, everyone was invited to a luncheon and reception hosted by Miami-Dade County for the 11th round of talks.

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Source: The Miami Herald

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