Ambassador to speak on effects of U.S., Chile trade

By Timothy Pratt

Tuesday, Sept. 28, 2004 | 10:46 a.m.

Most Americans don't know anything about Chile, that country's ambassador to the United States, Andres Bianchi, said Monday.

But Bianchi, in town this week with a small delegation visiting MINExpo, an mining convention being held at the Las Vegas Convention Center, wants to change that, especially after the two countries signed a free trade agreement abolishing tariffs that became effective in January.

So he's speaking at the Sterling Club at 6 tonight on "Forging a new partnership: Chile and the United States under the free trade agreement."

The story he wants to tell, Bianchi said, includes increasing U.S. exports to his country by 26 percent in the first seven months of this year as well as raising imports by 21 percent -- including such everyday products as lumber and salmon.

The U.S. agreement was one of a series of similar pacts that began with other countries in the mid-90s, including Canada, Mexico and the European Union.

The result has not only been increased trade, Bianchi said, but improved standards of living for the population as a whole.

"Macroeconomic figures have had impacts on real living conditions," he said -- including halving the percentage of the country's population that lives in poverty from 40 to 20 percent in the last decade-plus.

That helps explain why Chileans have immigrated in much lower numbers to the U.S. than other Latin American countries with more unstable economies, the official said.

Nationwide, the last census estimated the number of Chileans at less than 100,000, where people with origins in some other countries such as Mexico are figured in the millions. Locally, the Chilean community is estimated at about 1,000.