El Caribe newspaper dedicated the front page of its economics section today to the debate over who should be in charge of trade negotiations. The Mejia administration took this responsibility away from the Ministry of Foreign Relations and assigned it to the Ministry of Industry & Commerce. The newspaper complains that the Ministry of Industry & Commerce is excluding the private sector and others who participated in past negotiations. It says all such dealings are now being handled exclusively by Minister Angel Lockward. El Caribe newspaper would prefer the Ministry of Industry and Commerce to administer trade agreements and promote commerce and investments while negotiations should be left to the team at the Ministry of Foreign Relations because of the political implications. "Trade negotiations are not exclusively a technical issue, rather they are a political issue with a high technical component," says the newspaper.
