 Good afternoon, welcome, we will now start with our session. Since most speakers are Spanish speaking, our session will take place in Spanish, but please those of you who want to ask questions at the end of the session, we'll have 20 minutes so that you who are here as members of the audience and participants can join us as you have been doing in the World Economic Forum with your questions. This panel is really exciting. We have a topic to talk about in these next 60 minutes which has to do with the New World, Mercosur, with the Pacific Alliance, with the blocks, with the arrival of Donald Trump to the USA and how that protectionism can open up possibilities or cause risks and threats. Also we have a panel which is a luxury. To my right I have one of the hosts in Argentina, Minister Francisco Cabrera, the Minister of Production of Argentina, thank you, Minister Marcos Pereira, the Ministry of Interest, Foreign Trade and Services of Brazil, and we speak to him a little slower, welcome minister. Minister Horaldo Muñoz, the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Chile, and then Matias Eliachev, he is the CEO of Lazara Argentina and he will be the thermometer of the private sector opportunities in the region. Thank you very much for joining us and there in the middle we have Mr. Juajardo Villarreal, the Secretary of the Economy of Mexico, which is the equivalent to a Minister for us. So since you were kind enough to accept being the last one to be introduced, could you tell us please how this new world and the opportunities of this new world are being lived since the arrival of Donald Trump in the USA? The change of paradigm is a world challenge. It is not only a challenge for Mexico and undoubtedly the world is looking at Mexico very closely because in terms of a relationship of integration, it is a country that is closest to the USA with a very important trade relation. Our bilateral trade is $500 billion and is highly concentrated in North America. However, the policy and diversification which we have been sustaining for the last four years, when the Pacific Alliance colleagues and here we have Minister Muñoz with us, he is one of the colleagues and members of the Alliance, we closed in 2014 the chapter on the protocol on investment and trade and reducing, now we are reducing the tariffs with Colombia, with Peru. So an inter-alliance trade is low, the value chain has to be strengthened. Vis-a-vis what we are facing towards the North, the uncertainty of beginning the renegotiation of the free trade agreement of NAFTA, for Mexico is essential, it's essential to speed up the diversification processes elsewhere. Today we are in the third round of our modernization of the agreement with Europe and are working with Brazil and Argentina to extend our trade preferences. Why? Because to begin a negotiation with credibility and strength, it is necessary to have options to supply ourselves with foodstuffs which are totally concentrated today in the U.S. market. So this really represents a very big opportunity for Mexico to change its trade, to reinvent itself from the point of view of competitiveness, logistics, infrastructure, but at the same time it is a challenge of keeping the best structure possible with our relationship with the United States. Mr. Munoz, talking about this alliance and this 92% you referred to, or the Guajardo Viterreal mentioned, there is also inter-block potential, a potential which for the last few years of our local history and regionally has been mentioned, but it's very difficult to materialize it. Do you think there is a change regarding this now? I believe the challenge of an uncertain world, whether our protection is pressures, nationalistic pressures, is an opportunity to do what we have not done yet, which is to go forward with integration, which is not optional, it's a must. And in the Pacific Alliance, we have taken this as a very specific challenge. Beyond what Ida Alfonso has said, what we have done internally which is to liberalize 92% of the flow of goods and services. And now we also want to go forward in the field of finance because the idea is also capital and persons. And our colleagues from the Treasury have been working simultaneously to have a financial passport and an important number of initiatives. So there are internal tasks, but there are also tasks with other blocks. And the Pacific Alliance has been working with ASEAN for the last two years, and we have reached a cooperation agreement which prioritizes several areas, innovation, education, science and technology. And that is an important step forward. Possibly the most significant thing is what we have just agreed with the Ministers in Vina de Mara at a high-level meeting we held there, where the Pacific Alliance decided as a block to begin free trade agreements with members or partners of the Pacific Alliance. And that is a qualitative leap for the Pacific Alliance. It has been very welcomed by many partners of the Asia-Pacific region. So we will work on this, and there are two requirements here. One, that they be free trade agreements with a very high standard, very high quality, with good disciplines. And at the same time, that those agreements be concluded in a relatively short period of time. We don't want to spend years and years negotiating. What are we talking about when we talk about a short period of time? If I had the option as Chile, I would say a few months, not years. But I think that with several of the potential partners that we will define them in the near future, those negotiations can begin without further delay. And another point is that we are also looking at the Atlantic, as well as Asia-Pacific. We have been holding conversations with Mercosur, and tomorrow we will have a meeting of foreign affairs and trade ministers of both blocks to see how we can work on some issues of common interest, trade facilitation, SMEs. There are many topics, many fields where separately we are not as efficient as if we did things jointly. Also, considering that intra-regionally our trade is very small compared to other regions. Minister Pereira, then later we will go into further depth about this meeting, which Minister Minunios is telling us about. But let's talk a little about Brazil and Brazil within the framework of Mercosur. What is your analysis of the Brazilian economy, especially thought of for regional and international investors? Thank you very much. I will speak in Portuguese. I will speak slowly. So that everyone can understand. And there is interpretation too. And your colleague, our colleague who speaks Portuguese very well because he was ambassador to Brazil. Brazil is experiencing a new era under the rule of President Temer. We are in the process of implementing significant reforms, structural reforms. Two weeks ago, for example, we have adopted a law for outsourcing to provide greater legal certainty in the area of outsourcing. And we've adopted a cap for public spending, for government spending, which is very important. You know that every ruler would like to have unlimited funds for spending. We are discussing a new form of rule in addition to facilitating tax payment. There is a demand from the Brazilian and the international productive sectors, for those who invest in Brazil, on the difficulties in paying taxes in Brazil. All of which has already brought about a return of trust on the Brazilian economy from the market. On the other hand, the economy that had been slowing down has stopped its decline. Since we took office 11 months ago, it's not even one year yet, the expectation for the drop in the GDP was 3.8%. The government was on an interim basis from May onwards, up to September. And even so, we reduced the drop from 3.8 to 3.3. And this year's forecast expects that in the fourth quarter, we will have a growth of 2.7% of the Brazilian GDP. So we are highly optimistic also in the area of foreign trade, where we are moving forward on issues with our Mercosur partners. And yesterday, we had the first meeting of trade ministers and industry ministers from Mercosur. Mr. Cabrera and myself, Carolina, and Gustavo Sleis from Paraguay, met to inject some oxygen into Mercosur, realign Mercosur, to prepare for this juncture for the world. Brazil and the other partners of Mercosur, I believe I can speak for them, are all equally concerned, and we've been discussing this over the past few days, in that increased protectionism, and to conclude with the election of the new US president, and also, why not, the Brexit, the exiting of the UK from the EU, are issues of concern that may cause us to unite, to conclude precisely at the time when the trade facilitation agreement of the WTO becomes effective, where more than 120 countries have ratified it and are meeting its duties. A protectionism arises that unites us, and Brazil, being one of the main economies in Latin America, will be a protagonist in the process. Minister Cabrera and this framework, Argentina is also involved in a host of structural reforms that have to do with returning to the world. What's the potential at the level of Mercosur and what's the outlook? As Margo Pereira said, we defined that our integration strategy is with Mercosur. Therefore, we focused all our energy there, and we set it as a priority, and our president made a state visit on September the 6th to Brazil, and as from there, we relaunched Mercosur that began with Brazil, the biggest economy among the founding members of Mercosur. We set a number of guidelines to go forward. Obviously, there are fundamental issues, such as the investment protocols, but we have also focused on everything having to do with trade facilitation, and we will get into something that is complex, but very relevant, which is regulatory consistency. We would like to, in the future, have sanitary or phytosanitary technical rules for all of Mercosur as a whole, so that the flow of goods within Mercosur is not restricted due to technical reasons. We think this is really important, and this is what makes us ready for a big challenge, which is the negotiation with the EU. We were wondering during this meeting, which Margo Pereira referred to, this meeting with all the ministers of Mercosur, how we were, where we stood with the public procurement protocol. We don't have a joint protocol, so how can we negotiate with the EU individually, country by country? No, we set a date, and we will have a public procurement protocol for all of us. This is unheard of within Mercosur for the last 20 years. Mercosur hasn't taken a single decision to go forward, and in these two months, we have moved more than in the last 20 years. We want Mercosur to be a dynamic trade platform, powerful, a winning one, so that we can go ahead and come as close as possible to the Pacific Alliance. Once again, the challenge is the agreement with the European Union, but this is a challenge and a very big opportunity for all of Mercosur. Now, the barometer of the private sector is also important. We talk about the private sector of the region of Argentina, and the interaction of both blocks. What is the status of that situation? It's really interesting, because if you look at history, the foreign FDI flows were very similar to the trade scheme, a very little intraragional trade, and significant flows from the region outwards, focusing especially on raw materials, exports with very little added value. But this changed, and more than a decade ago, we saw an interesting phenomenon through growth in multilatin companies, which originally were national, very strong companies in different industrial sectors, which have initially had very good development in their own markets, but throughout the years developed an expansion strategy in the region and were very successful. Beyond the fact that in the last two years there has been a small deceleration because of the impact in the fall of the price of commodities and depreciations or devaluations, today in the Pacific Alliance countries and Mercosur countries, there are very large companies which have successfully expanded their operations throughout the region, who have a very important role because these companies are companies generating the development of networks of suppliers with an impact, as the minister said just now, in the development of these value chains, which are so important for the development of trade and integration with the world. So along these lines, I believe there has been a de facto regional integration from the private sector point of view, which is ahead of what the public sector has been able to do. It is very important that this continue and there are limitations. We speak permanently to CEOs of companies throughout the region and you obviously listen to their concerns and obviously the tariff structures and trade policies and certain distortions are reasons to worry. But there are other things that are not captured in these talks and are also very important. For example, the logistics cost, the cost of transport, the availability of energy and telecommunications, allowing these companies to be more efficient and to continue growing within this regional integration scheme. The vision is that the international situation will provide many opportunities and all this wave of protectionism we see both in the US and in Europe is a very big opportunity for large Latin American companies to go on to the next stage and play a very important role in the economic development of the region. Minister Villichel Real and as a trigger, we have heard about the unexpected push or strength of regional integration. Why unexpected and when will it stop being unexpected to become part of a common agenda? I don't know whether the term to be used should be unexpected but very few times in history have the scenarios become aligned as they have. You have two big Latin American countries, Brazil and Argentina, which somehow or other, as my friend Francisco said, had two decades of following a model which was not necessarily accompanying the opening of other countries in the region of the world. So today, two trends come together and we have to take advantage of them. That we are tuned in the same way, we have to take advantage of that. And if we also add to that the fact that we are reverting a free trade policy seen in Washington for decades, which today as from the G20 incident where the US Treasury Secretary withdrew the paragraph of fight against protectionism, which was quite a great surprise that the United States defended that paragraph for years, we have to react. We can't keep still before the uncertainty generated in Washington regarding the future of free trade in the world. So Latin America has a fundamental opportunity. And what can we see? What it was saying. Now we have a new status associate member for trade agreements with Asia, but this has a deeper political meaning. What have we just done in the Vina del Marat, the Pacific Alliance? Very carefully answer Washington that if Mr. Trump has just forgotten about the trade agreement, we invested more than five years in this negotiation. And one way to recover it is using the Pacific Alliance as a landing ground because we can't afford, at least if Mexican case is essential, we can't afford to open a bridge towards Asia. This is regardless of how our countries will negotiate bilaterally with Washington. This is a historic opportunity. We must take advantage of it. We have to take advantage of the alignment of visions occurring among the big Latin American ministries. Mr. Munoz, you have mentioned an interblock meeting, a meeting which will begin this Friday. What is it all about? And what will change after that agreement? Before that, I would like to continue with a previous question because, in fact, there is nothing as unexpected in the opening and the effort made by several Latin American countries, including Chile, regarding market opening. Chile has been doing this since the 90s. We have more free trade agreements than any other country. And this has been the foundation for Chile's prosperity. We have gone from $5,800 GDP per capita in 1990 to about $24,000 per capita last year. And a fundamental issue has been openness. We have eliminated poverty from 39% in 1990 after having left the dictatorship when free trade agreements were negotiated to 11% which is what we have today, poverty in Chile. So we think it's essential to continue along the road of improving the agreements we have. And in fact, with Mexico, we have a bilateral free trade agreement which has been successful. We have updated it, modernized it, but we've got to go beyond these bilateral trade agreements. And now that the circumstances are arising to follow regional agreements, we must take advantage of that opportunity. One of the possibilities is to go forward with Mercosur, understanding that these are two different blocks. And we are not looking for a merger of these two blocks because it would be a utopia. It makes no sense to merge them both and that is not our purpose. This is a pragmatic dialogue, taking into account common objectives. And if we can get to a joint action plan where we have objectives such as trade facilitation or single electronic windows, SMEs, why not the movement of people, everything is possible, I think we will generate a capacity to create more trade and prosperity. But we have to operate with great pragmatism and this is the aim of the meeting we will have tomorrow, which has been preceded by some work of our experts and even of Deputy Ministers last year in Lima where topics of interest to both blocks were identified. So I believe we have to follow that path. Minister Pereda, there are two realities, one of them in the Pacific Alliance, which, and these agreements refer to have been worked on for the last few years. And another is Visavi Mercosur, which has to do with the fluctuation of the different policies implemented. There has been a stage of greater protectionism and now another stage, which goes more in line with the trade opening. Which, in which of these stories should the regional or international investor believe today? Evidently, he must believe in today's Mercosur, in the current Mercosur, especially because of the new realignment between the governments or among the governments when President Temer took office. His first official trip was to Argentina and President Macri returned the trip on February to Brasilia, at which time we have aligned the policies. Argentina has the pro temp chair for Mercosur during this semester and Brazil will hold it in the next semester. So we have already aligned both sets of policies and to add to what Minister Munoz has just said in the last question, the previous question, we are going to push forward as soon as possible very quickly in the sense that we need to provide a response for the world. I have some data here if you allow me and I don't want to bore you with the numbers, but it's necessary to re-signify trade between Mercosur, the Pacific Alliance and Latin American countries taking Latin America as a whole. In 2016, last year, Latin American exports and Latin American and Caribbean exports according to ECLAC fell by 5% while imports fell by 9% completing a four-year period of declines or four consecutive years of decline. Intraragional trade within Latin America fell most sharply in 2015. Latin American, Caribbean exports to the rest of the world fell almost by 14% the trade among the countries of the region dropped by 20%. So we are doing less trade among one another. There's also a trigger there, a driver relative to the future and the projection that's opening up relative to given areas of products and services. How can the relationship with Mercosur be enhanced there? Let me answer the question, but the truth is that the opportunity does not lie in the intra Mercosur market, but in opening up because as Minister Munoz rightly put it, Chile may be one of the countries that has the largest number of free trade agreements with the rest of the world. It has many FTAs and in our estimations, and I believe they are correct, our neighboring friendly country has FTAs with close to 90% of the GDP of the world, while Mercosur has FTAs with 10% of the world's GDP. So I think the first vision for us should be and one we need to persuade our own business persons to believe and union leaders as well is the opportunity for growth, given that Argentina currently faces a chronic problem of job demand. We need to grow and reproduce our companies and the market is not the domestic market, but the world at large, one world that we're very distant from and very close to at the same time. Argentina is exiting a populist decade. Is it difficult to make that change? Yes, it is difficult, but it can be done. We make changes on a daily basis, no doubt. As changes happen, processes start speeding up. We started doing our macroeconomic homework and regularization of foreign trade, and we are already working on productive agreements and it is difficult because of course Argentina has low productivity and we need to improve that over time, but it is up to the government, which needs to do its homework to achieve it. We are in the process of doing it and we think we can. Matias, you just mentioned multi-Latin companies, the potential for growth in the region, but also in recent times, the creation of large companies was halted. Companies both from the Mercosur block, but this was not the case with the Pacific block. With a new scenario, can the trend be reverted? Yes, I believe so, as I said at the outset. Part of this deceleration had to do with the global context which started going into a more complex era after many favorable years, with the drop in commodity prices, and in addition, the accumulation of much expansion and acquisitions that need time to be digested, but I believe save a few exceptions. We are reaching a new point of maturity and in this new environment, together with the international juncture, we will go back to a greater level of growth and expansion for these companies, which actually, as I said, had had very good performance and can start competing worldwide. I believe companies are aware of their potential and in as much as alternatives start looking less favorable, investors will start considering more further investment opportunities within Mercosur and the Alliance. Within this framework of bilateral treaties and meetings, I will propose a game which has to do with analyzing not your own block, but the corresponding block in terms of strengths and weaknesses. Minister Villarreal, looking at Mercosur, what do you admire from Mercosur and what you wouldn't like to be in their shoes for? Basically, one of the elements we should consider is that over time the capability of developing trade agreements, free trade agreements, not only impacts on the trade of goods and the trading capacity, these instruments also render legal certainty to investment flows. The other side of the story in this kind of agreement, and let me give you an example, the story of integration between Mexico and the free market of North America will not only have multiplied the flow by eight, but FDIs used to be 2.5 billion dollars. The next year they went up to 12 and then to 19 billion dollars and currently when we have trade agreements with 46 countries, FDIs are at an average of 35 billion dollars. Why? Because agreements also define disciplines and rules for protection for investment, intellectual property, investment panels that can confirm that you can place your bets in other markets in the certainty that there's a maturity of these systems in internationally renowned practices. So specifically in the comparative between Mexico and Mercosur, Mercosur is locked in a closed system. It doesn't allow for the opening, but it has an effect on the mega Latin companies and it will depend on how they commit to it. In the case of the previous administration for Argentina specifically, what if a company invests and overnight there is a new restriction by a regulation whereby their money cannot be converted into another currency. You are infringing their rights and they will tell you to an arbitration court internationally. So in as much as that's not the case, there's certainty in the long term. Minister Pereda conversely, how do you view the Pacific block from Mercosur in terms of what are their opportunity, strengths and weaknesses? No doubt Mercosur has experienced a time of closing for 20 years approximately, but we must and myself and Minister Cabrera are here representing the two largest economies in the block to state that this is a new time and we have a need at least from the Brazilian perspective. I can comfortably say that in the private sector, in Brazil, Brazilian companies were reluctant to sign agreements for some time. They were concerned about competitiveness, the so-called Brazil cost, whereas now there is an agenda from the productive sector which is reviewed every year where they ask for and charge on the progress of such negotiations in terms of the opening up of a country. That is why there has been a change in position, a change of administration and a new alignment, I believe now, with the Mercosur partners. And yesterday in our meeting with Mercosur ministers, the other two countries, Paraguay and Uruguay, but it's important that Mr. Cabrera and Mr. Cabrera is nodding because it's important that Argentina and Brazil open up and lead this process since they are the two main economies in the block because when the two largest members grow, the other countries grow as well. That is why we are highly optimistic about tomorrow's meeting of trade ministers and foreign affairs ministers for Mercosur and the countries in the Pacific Alliance to this morning on the bilateral meeting. I discussed this with the minister from Peru and others. And we are, so to speak, selling the image of a new Mercosur and the outcome of the current negotiations will show that we are experiencing a new era, a new time and that's a reason why I'm very hopeful that tomorrow and over the next few months we will make progress in this opening up which is essential for our businesses but especially to create employment which is a challenge for Argentina, Brazil and the other members of the Mercosur block. Minister Munoz, one of the issues that appear and are important have to do with infrastructure. The situation in terms of costs, for instance, in Argentina land freight is still of a very high cost in terms of competitiveness. Is there a challenge to work among the blocks towards this new competitiveness? I believe so, yes, because there's a recognition that if we are to expand our trade, we need to have adequate logistics and infrastructure connectivity. In that connection, I would like to mention our work or work that's being done by the companies and it's a silent type of work because it's true that governments have stood behind the private sector which has crossed borders. The number of Chilean investments across South America is very significant only in Brazil there are over 30 billion dollars worth of Chilean investments but we also receive investments from Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, Peru and that's in the process of happening and this goes hand in hand with further developing appropriate infrastructure. We are working with Brazil, Paraguay, Uruguay and Argentina on bio-Syanic corridors and this aspiration we have had for a long time is materializing in specific projects to unite two bio-Syanic corridors, one going from Mato Grosso from Puerto Boutinho going through Paraguay, crossing Argentina out to the ports in the north of Chile and another one starting in Porto Alegre. So these are important projects that we are conducting together with Argentina and we've already launched the preliminary tender for the binational tunnel of Agua Negra which will unite the province of San Juan with the region of Coquimbo in Chile. So this is a major work with the IDB and I expect the tender will be completed this year. This is for a full-fledged project and I believe we need to go in that direction. If I took the question you asked to the Fonsa Batmercosaur, I would say we need to envy the size of the market and the importance of the Mercosaur market to other countries because if we are to move from commodity-based economies to add value to our exports, to add innovation and knowledge, where are we to export those products? The natural market for a country like Chile and the countries of the Pacific Alliance as well is a market like Mercosaur. So higher value-added products, the manufactured products from our countries need to have an opportunity to go into those markets and there lies one of the beauties of Mercosaur and I wouldn't talk about the two major economies because with Paraguay and Uruguay, I would like to say we have a very close relationship and we've just secured an agreement with Uruguay, state-of-the-art free trade agreement with Uruguay. We are associated members of Mercosaur. We will have an association agreement, an assay with Mercosaur, but we've negotiated an FTA with Uruguay which has highly innovative modalities such as a chapter on gender for instance under the FTA and we are currently working with Argentina on a trade liberalization and free trade agreement. So that's very important in Mercosaur, although the critical comments have already been made. Those are other elements I would like to pick up. For the past last 15 minutes, we have with the ministers and the representative from the private sector, Matias Eliaschev, please ask questions. If you have a question, raise your hand and identify yourself. Yes, introduce yourself. There we go. Director Rodriguez from Axelombita, Venezuela. I heard Minister Pereira and he was very happy when he said that Mercosaur has been relaunched and later on he said Mercosaur is experiencing a new era and a new image and he looked very happy. How does Venezuela fit in that new image and relaunch? Venezuela has been suspended from Mercosaur, as you're all aware, because it failed to meet its minimum obligations and recently there was a meeting actually last Saturday of foreign affairs ministers of Mercosaur to discuss the new time that you've all read on the papers where the powers of Congress were withdrawn in Venezuela. We know that by now the court of justice has returned the powers to Congress and therefore Venezuela has not influenced these negotiations because it's suspended from Mercosaur. But I would like to stress that as Mr. Cabrera said, we are in the process of negotiating and at the political level at least we would like to announce an agreement with the EU by year end at least a political agreement so that technicians can move ahead on the technical issues next year. And even if Venezuela hadn't been suspended, it was not involved in these negotiations and therefore we are concerned because we understand that the domestic issues in Venezuela will be solved and Mercosaur is suffering this situation. I invite you to pose another question. Cristina Herrera, regional director for a mentor group in Mexico, we have our headquarters for Latin America. Regarding the phase we are currently undergoing and the next phase of strengthening and consolidation and the different modalities that will have an impact on the technology, what's the perspective of the private sector relative to cyber security? Security on transactions, macro data and data because at the end of the day we are people and the human side will have a significant influence. Thank you very much. Who can take the answer? Cyber security, the private sector. You've been given the floor. Undoubtedly, cyber security is an issue that has gained relevance internationally precisely because of the growth we've seen and we will continue to see over the next few years of IT in all aspects of our lives. So quite clearly the business and the investment to develop tools that protect these businesses is an activity that will grow significantly. Now, the problem is things evolve so quickly that I believe for many years ahead we will continue to face risks that will be difficult to mitigate and reality is that in many countries, in many different legislation, we haven't been able to catch up yet relative to the technological evolution and the new emerging risks. So I believe this will continue to be an important tool when it comes to conceiving investments in these sectors. Another question. There will be another question from this side now. You've been excluded, I'm sorry. Maximiliana Ricci, I am Reuters correspondent. Question to Minister Guajardo. Is it possible for Mexico to use a zero rate policy or duty policy for soybean from Argentina or Brazil? Are there any negotiations underway in this regard or could this come under the Mercosur agreement? The ministers from Mercosur are smiling. It means that they thought about it. They may smile, but they need to discuss the topic. And the main issue is there is an intention, an actual intention, that started much before the election in the US and the respective visits and whereby there's a commitment to expand our rates and to introduce disciplines that will be part of a free trade agreement. In our next round, both with Brazil and Argentina, it is of the essence to put on the table a high level of ambition where we have all of the agrarian or agricultural sector to see how far we can get. It will be an important time for us because although we will look at the conditions that are set on the table, that's clearly to open up the market of the two large sectors, but I want to be very clear. I do not need, faced with my negotiation to the north, to be able to strengthen my position to have completed the negotiation because I have the right of determining zero rate quotas if need be. So in the midst of the negotiation with North America, should I face any difficulties where I need to provide a firm response, I can say Mexico opens up a quota of so many tons, million tons of white corn and the rate on this will be zero regardless of the time we are at in the negotiation. But there is a decision to continue with very high expectations to secure an agreement that will strengthen the economic relations with Brazil and Argentina. There is a lady who had a question there. Much this is, my question is for a whole panelist as we know that the rate of women's participation, economic participation in the region is low. And I would like to know that how in Marcos you've seen the role of women to basically sustain economy in a better gender balance way. Who would like to answer? I have a woman president. For us, it is absolutely essential to have participation, not only by women in the labor market as part of the labor force, but also in terms of gender equality. That's essential not only from the ethical perspective but also from the economic perspective. And as more women join the labor market, there is higher income for the homes. And that is why it's a fundamental element where Latin America has a lot of work to do into the future. And that is why I mentioned in passing that in this free trade agreement with Uruguay we have an unheard of chapter on gender precisely. And Canada, a country with which we will be upgrading our bilateral agreement has stated they wish to negotiate a similar chapter with us with the purpose of supporting business women by including a fundamental component of growth starting with the opening up the issue of gender equality and women empowerment. So I feel that's a sphere where we still have a lot of work to do because progress has been made at a modest pace in my country for the same jobs women earn around 25% less than men. And these are absolutely unacceptable realities that we will correct as we have political will. The mean income is at around 35% in Argentina so it's between 25 to 35% gender gap in terms of income to the people at my back if you have questions. I am Raul González from Integral Petroleum and I would like to administer it although on the tax Chile has on the import of crude oil. Why keep it if the national oil company has suggested eliminating it, especially because Chile has a profile and opening profile, openness profile as you mentioned. In fact, there is no economy without some sensitive sectors and in the best negotiations there are sectors which are more sensible, sensitive than the long-term negotiations but Chile is an importing country. Not of oil because we're trying to change the energy matrix in my country. And investment today is concentrated on renewable energy sources. We are investing strongly and are inviting in the international community and businessmen to come particularly to the solar energy sector and wind energy. But solar mainly because in the north of Chile there are very particular circumstances for investment. We are investing strongly and receiving welcoming many companies. At the same time for quite a while we have imported gas and that was because of a frustration of ours when we came to an agreement with Argentina and built a pipeline more than one, yes, four. It was very expensive and ultimately Argentina was not able to sell us gas so we had to set up re-gasifying plants along the coast and started to buy gas from Malaysia, from Trinidad and Tobago which is upset because we should be integrated in terms of energy as well. So that is a path we have decided to follow. We will go towards clean renewable energy sources and from now until 2050 we'll have more than 50% of our consumption based on clean energy. We have time for two questions with very short answers. I'll take one from here because I haven't taken anyone from this side and then with you. My name is Lucia from 538 USA and I wanted to ask you what you think about China's role in this new regional economic scheme and you see the growing presence of the country in the region as something positive or as something that should be taken cautiously. We will give the floor, ministers, private sector, would you like to take the question? Who has a great presence of China? By far Mexico. No, no, Mexico doesn't. Mexico imports $60 billion. In terms of investment, we have a very big trade deficit, $60 billion with China which are used as inputs within the value chains as all chains are global and our relationship is basically a trade relation. We don't have important investment flows with China nor in infrastructure projects, nor in productive projects. To respond to the question, China is an important economy in the world per se. In the last few years in the case of Argentina, it has had more presence than what it had before that, basically bringing investment projects in nuclear power, in hydropower and in transport. We are renegotiating and discussing these contracts. These contracts were very interesting when Argentina had no credit at all and the only credit provider was China with a turnkey project in hand. This is not Argentina's situation now. Argentina has gone into the credit market after having coming out of default, which we had for 14 years, so we can take the decision of choosing the project that we find most convenient. Even so, we are working with China in terms of investment projects which are always very welcome. On the other hand, there is another aspect, the trade aspects with China, a very important player, and there is a discussion, a debate, frequently around prices, to what extent are the market prices or not. This is a debate that is still ongoing and at the last G20 meeting, there was an agreement that China had an excessive amount of installed capacity for steel because it's a very important input and China itself agrees that there are elements which make its prices non-market prices. So imagine that for Mercosur and Argentina, China is a very big opportunity, a very important partner, so we will continue to work with them and Argentina will have a state visit to China in the next few months. Thank you. Brazil also has China as a major partner. China is already our main trade partner in this order, first China, second United States, third Argentina. So our trade balance with China is very good and also in the area of investment. It is a major partner. So President Temer already has an agenda for scene to visit China in the second half of the year. Evidently, there are the sensitivities every market has and specific products too, but China is always welcome to Brazil. Last question please. Good afternoon, I'm Christine. I will speak Portuguese, but quite slowly. My question to all the panelists and there are several representatives from countries that recently suffered a block or lock on Brazilian beef with an episode that Minister Marcos Pereira helped solve. I would like to know whether you will go back to eating Brazilian beef or if you will take some more time before you do that. A simple question, who will take the question? First of all, I would like to hear my colleagues' opinions because I want to sell the Brazilian beef and if they haven't gone back to eating it, I want to treat you to dinner this evening and we'll find a place where we can find Brazilian beef. Minister Pereira says President Macri and the entire cabinet made reference to this, our strategic partner Argentina has advocated for it. We've worked hard and very specifically so that this issue is limit or to prove that the problem is specific. We have 4,837 meat packing plants in Brazil which are overlooked by the Ministry of Agriculture. Over 4,837, only 21 received the special audit system that is more intensive audits. Of the 21, only four exported, only four were exporting beef. So it was a specific issue of corruption involving two officers from a universe of 33 officers in the Ministry of Agriculture. 33 only in that region, not all the 11,300 employees from the Ministry of Agriculture. So it's a limited issue. The judge in charge of the investigation has already stated that the problem was not Brazilian beef but corruption in four plants that were exporting out of a universe of 4,837 plants. We've covered all the chapters on the unexpected push for regional integration and most of the headlines we keep is that on the one hand Mercosur and the Pacific Alliance are no longer two independent blocks in the new social, economic and regional context. And aside from the ups and downs in the region, the decision was made to work jointly. We spoke about costs, logistics. There is one aspect to improve there and we have dealt with gender economy and area where the gender gap is still an issue to be solved. We also discussed the quality, quantity of products and services, economies, at least the ones in the Mercosur are migrating increasingly towards services as a way of adding value to our products into the future and between the two blocks there's one part of love and part resentment. But one conclusion is that the block of Munoz and Villa Real are trading with 90% of the world's GDP in the case of Chile and the Mercosur block, especially Argentina, only with 10% of the world's GDP. Therefore, there is potential for this teamwork. Thank you all.