Argentina’s president will visit Brazil on Wednesday

The president of Argentina, Cristina Kirchner, will pay an official visit to Brasilia on Wednesday, where she will discuss a solution to the growing commercial differences between both countries with Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva.

The trade dispute began late last year, when Argentina began to require non-automatic licensing to a range of Brazilian products, affecting more than 15 percent of goods coming from the neighbor country.

In response, Brazil recently implemented a series of non-automatic licensing to perishable goods and some industrial products originating from Argentina.

Because of the measure, more than 400 trucks loaded with Argentinean products (garlic and fruits) remained for several days at the border for not holding the required licenses.

Besides this impasse, the presidents will discuss “the need to restore the flow of bilateral trade and issues of mutual interest in regional and global agenda,” informed the Brazilian Ministry of External Relations in a statement.

The meeting between the leaders will be the fourth under the Integration and Coordination Mechanism Brazil and Argentina, which aims to ensure the monitoring and assessment of issues and projects of strategic cooperation between both countries.

The projects cover nuclear, spatial, science and technology cooperation, energy integration, physical infrastructure, system migration issues and local currency payments, among others.

Argentina and Brazil are the main partners in the Mercosur trade bloc comprising also Paraguay and Uruguay, with bilateral trade amounting 31,000 million dollars in 2008.