Program Data Sheet
596-005
USAID MISSION: Central America Regional
PROGRAM TITLE: Regional Trade and Investment (Pillar: Economic Growth, Agriculture, and Trade)
STRATEGIC OBJECTIVE AND NUMBER: Increased Central American Competitiveness in Global Markets, Phase II, 596-005
STATUS: Ongoing
PLANNED FY 2002 OBLIGATION AND FUNDING SOURCE: $2,800,000 (DA)
PRIOR YEAR UNOBLIGATED AND FUNDING SOURCE: $0
PROPOSED FY 2003 OBLIGATION AND FUNDING SOURCE: $7,300,000 (DA)
INITIAL OBLIGATION: FY 2001 ESTIMATED COMPLETION DATE: FY 2007
Summary: The USAID Regional Trade and Investment Program for Central America, known as PROALCA Phase II, provides technical assistance to:
- promote more open trade and investment policies and capacities, which will permit Central America to take fuller advantage of greater trading opportunities presented by an increasingly integrated world economy and FTAA and Central America Free Trade Area negotiations;
- accelerate Central America's process of regional integration which is consistent with World Trade Organization (WTO) standards and makes the region more efficient and competitive; and
- improve the functioning of regional labor markets, while strengthening the protection of core labor standards.
Inputs, Outputs and Activities: FY 2002 Program: USAID will use FY 2002 DA resources to provide technical assistance to increase public support for open trade and investment policies, meet WTO commitments, monitor and enforce Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) agreements, reduce intraregional trade and investment barriers, and consolidate a customs union. Public and private sector customs officials and IPR personnel will be trained in implementation of IPR agreements, customs procedures and valuation, and competition policy. Also, the program will support the building of a strong regional energy sharing system by restructuring energy sectors in each of the Central American countries. Technical assistance will improve legislation, support stronger regional and national regulating bodies, develop plans for energy rate setting, and help open the sector to private initiatives. PROALCA II will help harmonize regional road standards by financing the development and distribution of three road manuals. In the labor component, the program will assist Labor Ministries in economic policy-making related to labor; support the establishment of one or more alternative labor dispute resolution systems; and help harmonize labor laws and regulations, skills standards and standards for certification methods.
Planned FY 2003 Program: USAID will use FY 2003 DA resources to continue the above activities. Expanded cooperation with Central American partners to advance U.S. interests will draw on the additional resources made available in FY 2003 under the Partnership for Prosperity initiative. In the first year of a five-year effort for accelerated trade facilitation, activities will build on Mexico's experience in NAFTA, providing assistance to: train Central American trade officials in Mexico; simplify customs and control in a pilot Guatemalan-Mexican border area; harmonize regional economic competitiveness and productivity policies and standards, including those for labor markets; promote intellectual property protection and cooperation between the Secretariat for Central American Economic Integration (SIECA) and the Mexican Industrial Property Institute; and promote regional power sharing.
Performance and Results: This program will begin in 2002, building on the achievements under PROALCA's first phase (1997-2001). Progress in this objective will not only promote Central American trade and investment, it will also reinforce the region's adoption of outward-looking, export-led strategies to achieve rapid, sustained, and equitable economic growth. As USAID's only regional trade promotion activity in Central America, PROALCA II will help maintain regional trade growth and continued increases in private investment in key sectors such as energy. Over the life of this objective, this strategy will have a positive impact on trade liberalization by: assuring that priority WTO commitments are met; harmonizing IPR laws and provisions for trademarks; enforcing industrial designs and copyrights: putting into place new trade dispute resolution mechanisms; and establishing one or more labor dispute resolutions systems.
By the end of the strategy period, we anticipate substantial movement toward a unified Central American Customs Union and a regional energy market and power-sharing arrangements, further accelerating the economic growth impacts of Central American integration and expanded regional and international trade.
Principal Contractors, Grantees, or Agencies: The Secretariat for Central American Economic Integration (SIECA) (prime) and PA Consulting, Inc (prime).
US Financing in Thousands of Dollars
|
596-005 Increased Central American Competitiveness in Global Markets | DA |
|---|
|
Through September 30, 2000
|
| Obligations | 0
|
| Expenditures | 0
|
| Unliquidated | 0
|
|
Fiscal Year 2001
|
| Obligations | 600
|
| Expenditures | 0
|
|
Through September 30, 2001
|
| Obligations | 600
|
| Expenditures | 0
|
| Unliquidated | 600
|
|
Prior Year Unobligated Funds
|
| Obligations | 0
|
|
Planned Fiscal Year 2002 NOA
|
| Obligations | 2,800
|
|
Total Planned Fiscal Year 2002
|
| Obligations | 2,800
|
|
Proposed Fiscal Year 2003 NOA
|
| Obligations | 7,300
|
| Future Obligations | 9,950
|
| Est. Total Cost | 20,650
|
|
