Ecuador's President-elect Rafael Correa said Sunday that he will not sign a free trade agreement with the United States but will seek extended trade preferences under an anti-drug agreement.
Canada has proposed starting official talks with Ecuador on a bilateral free-trade agreement before the end of 2006, the Andean nation's Foreign Ministry said Friday in a press statement.
US-based Occidental Petroleum Corporation (OXY) has dropped a compensation claim against Ecuador's state oil company Petroecuador in a move that analysts said may strengthen the oil firm's case against the government.
Ecuadorian President Alfredo Palacio has rejected arbitration against his nation for annulling in May the contract with US Oxy oil company that operated there.
An international arbitration court has rejected a request by Occidental Petroleum Corp. to stop Ecuador from seizing its assets in the Andean country, a government official said on Tuesday.
The outcome of Occidental Petroleum's latest dispute with Ecuador will be an important test of the effectiveness of BITs in protecting overseas investor rights in volatile political climates.
The foreign ministers of the Andean Community of Nations (CAN) forged ahead in attempts to quiet fears of an imminent collapse of the bloc following Venezuela's withdrawal, despite member-country political differences that were all too evident at the regional summit.
More fall out from the Ecuador-Oxy clash: things went from bad to worse for Ecuador-US Free Trade negotiations when Ecuador's Minister of Finance, Jorge Illingworth and his successor, Manuel Chiriboga both resigned.
The Ministers of Health of ten South American countries issued a
joint declaration on intellectual property committing themselves to
avoid "TRIPS plus" provisions in bilateral and regional trade agreements,
to facilitate the use of compulsory licensing and parallel importing and to
avoid broadening the scope of patentability and the extension of
patentable areas.