Mexican Senate approves FTA with Peru on second vote

Peruvian Minister of Foreign Trade and Tourism Jose Luis Silva and Mexico’s Finance Secretary Bruno Ferrari.

Peruvian Minister of Foreign Trade and Tourism Jose Luis Silva announced that the Mexican Senate on Thursday approved the Free Trade Agreement (FTA) with Peru on second vote after being rejected on Wednesday, and added that it will come into effect in the first quarter of 2012.

“Yesterday, the Mexican Senate's Trade and Industrial Development Committee disapproved the FTA with Peru, but it has been reconsidered,” he told Andina news agency.

He explained that at the plenary session two votes were held; the first to amend the vote of the Committee, and the second to approve the FTA with Peru.

"55 votes were in favor, 47 against and one abstained," said Silva from Geneva (Switzerland), from where he followed the course of the vote in the Mexican Senate together with Mexico’s Finance Secretary Bruno Ferrari.

Silva added that during the plenary session, Ferrari urged the senators to vote in favor of the FTA with Peru. “Minister Ferrari recalled that Peru is a strategic partner for the development of trade and international relations of Mexico," he told Andina.