Economy & Business - July 2025

REGION | Mercosur reaches trade deal with Efta bloc. The Southern Common Market (Mercosur) regional trade bloc announced on 2 July that it had concluded negotiations for a free trade agreement with the European Free Trade Association (Efta), comprising Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway, and Switzerland. The announcement was made on the first day of Mercosur’s latest leaders’ summit in Buenos Aires. South American leaders hailed the conclusion of talks as a boost for Mercosur, whose founding members – Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay, and Uruguay – had been negotiating the Efta deal for nearly a decade. An exploratory dialogue with a view to possible trade talks began in 2015 and the first round of official negotiations were launched in 2017. After the conclusion of the talks, the Mercosur and Efta countries announced that the deal would create a free-trade zone of almost 300m people and a combined GDP of more than US$4.3trn. They said both sides would benefit from improved market access for more than 97% of their exports. Before it can be ratified, the deal still requires parliamentary approval and a legal review from members of both blocs

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