A delegation from the United States Department of Commerce arrived in Honduras on Thursday for a four-day tour of the Central American region.
The undersecretary of the US Department of Commerce for International Trade, Melisa Lago, is leading a trade mission made up of more than 30 US companies seeking to strengthen exports to the region.
The “Central American Trade Mission and Business Conference will bring together US companies with distributors, sales representatives and other potential partners” in Belize, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras and Panama, according to a State Department statement.
It has transpired that Undersecretary Lago would not visit Guatemala. Nor do El Salvador or Nicaragua appear on the agenda.
In San José, a meeting of the official with the president of Costa Rica, Rodrigo Chaves Robles, and other officials of the Costa Rican government is scheduled. Costa Rica hosts until Monday the 22nd the Central American Trade Conference, where trade unions from the private sector and governments of the isthmus will participate.
During his stay in the region, Lago will meet with representatives from the private sector, including the American Chamber of Commerce and local chambers of commerce in Honduras and Costa Rica, “to discuss the challenges and opportunities for companies and their workers in the region. ”, according to the press release.
“Central America is home to crucial export markets that offer immense opportunities for US businesses and workers across all industries (…) I look forward to supporting our exporters and their workers and working to ensure that the benefits of trade reach more widely. and equitable to both the United States and Central America,” said the official.
Meetings in Costa Rica
There has been no explanation as to why the trade official has passed by Guatemala, the country of the Central American Northern Triangle with the largest economy on the isthmus.
The Guatemalan media Prensa Libre quoted the president of the Guatemalan Chamber of Commerce, Juan Pablo Carrasco, who acknowledged that only delegates from 11 US companies enrolled in the “energy, security, technology, food and fertilizer” sectors will arrive in his country. .
For the union representative, the visit is framed in “the interest of the companies” to obtain information on the market and thereby strengthen relations with the business sector to “advance specific projects and identify possible partners.”
Undersecretary Logo’s tour and her presence at the annual regional conference comes just days after revealing the behavior of the market and the trade balance in countries like El Salvador, which during the first half of this year has expanded the negative trade balance with a difference close to 10,000 million dollars.
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