MERCOSUR Group: In News
India and MERCOSUR signed the First Additional Protocol to the India–MERCOSUR Preferential Trade Agreement (PTA) to facilitate acceptance of electronic Certificates of Origin.
- The India-MERCOSUR PTA was signed on 25 January 2004 and entered into force on 1 June 2009.
- The Agreement provides preferential tariff concessions on 450 tariff lines by India and 452 tariff lines by the MERCOSUR side.
- The Southern Common Market (MERCOSUR for its Spanish initials) is a South American regional economic organization.
- It is the fourth largest integrated market after the European Union (EU), North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), and ASEAN.
- It was created in 1991 by signing the Treaty of Asunción.
- Objective: Free movement of goods, services, capital and people and it became a customs union in January 1995.
- Member countries originally comprised Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay, and Uruguay as its members.
- Bolivia and Venezuela joined it later. (Venezuela has been suspended since December 1, 2016).
- Mercosur also counts Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, Guyana, Peru, and Suriname as associate members.
- Headquarters: Montevideo, Uruguay.
- Its official working languages are Spanish and Portuguese.
- Governance of MERCOSUR Group:
- Common Market Council: It is the bloc’s highest decision-making body, and provides a high-level forum for coordinating foreign and economic policy.
- The group consists of the foreign and economic ministers of each member state, or their equivalent, and decisions are made by consensus.
- The group’s presidency rotates every six months among its full members.
