US embassy cable - 05TEGUCIGALPA1565

UNCLAS TEGUCIGALPA 001565 
 
SIPDIS 
 
 
DEPT. FOR WHA/PD; IIP/G/WHA DIPASQUALE; AND IIP/T/ES 
DEPT. FOR EB/TPP DCLUNE, WHA/EPSC AND WHA/CEN 
DEPT. PASS USTR 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: OIIP, KPAO, ETRD, HO, USTR 
SUBJECT: MEDIA REACTION ON CAFTA, JULY 28, 2005 
 
 
1.   On 07/28 the Tegucigalpa-based liberal daily "La 
Tribuna" published an op-ed by Segisfredo Infante entitled 
"Lack of Productivity versus FTA."  "The Economic capacity 
of Honduras is so small that it runs the risk of appearing 
ridiculous when compared to the growing possibilities of an 
intense international market free of trade tariffs." 
 
"Nobody ignores the fact that the American production 
capacity is gigantic and that our national capacity to 
compete is pretty much microscopic.  However, a tropical 
country such as ours has the potential for agricultural 
production and exports that the United States will never 
have. This opens the possibility of creating or discovering 
some niches for new markets, which pragmatically we 
Hondurans will have to identify." 
 
"I am very familiar with the intensive work of the 
negotiating group of the ex-Minister Norman Garcia, who was 
kind enough to give me the two gigantic volumes of the `Free 
Trade Agreement' as gifts. I dare say that the normative 
work represents 85% of the efforts of Honduran and Costa 
Rican negotiators and perhaps a little less by the 
Guatemalans, Salvadorans, and Nicaraguans. However, the 
legal framework will never resolve the issue of the enormous 
discrepancies derived from the lack of productivity of our 
society.  For this reason, I have always talked about the 
positive and negative aspects of a `free' market removed 
from the structural realities of Honduras.  In any case, 
this will continue to be an issue for Hondurans and sometime 
in the future one for North Americans. We will then continue 
to have a national problem for a long time." 
 
Tuebner