Ten Principles of the PTA

  1. The Peoples Trade Agreement- proposed by president Evo Morales- is a response to the non-viability of the neo-liberal model, founded on deregulation, privatization and the indiscriminate opening of markets.
  2. The PTA understands commerce and investment not merely as ends in themselves, but rather as means of development. For this reason, the principal objective is not the absolute liberalization of markets and a "shrinking" of the State, but rather development for the benefit of the people.
  3. The PTA promotes a model for commercial integration among peoples, and regulates the rights of foreign investors and trans-national corporations, so that they promote national development and production.
  4. The PTA does not prohibit the use of mechanisms which foment industrialization, nor does it impede the protection of internal markets necessary to protect the most vulnerable sectors.
  5. The PTA recognizes the right of the people to define their own agriculture and food security policies; to protect and regulate national agricultural production, assuring that the internal market is not inundated by surpluses from other countries.
  6. The PTA considers that vital services must be owned exclusively by public companies, and regulated by the State. The negotiation of any integration agreement must support the notion that the majority of basic services are public goods and cannot be turned over to the market.
  7. The PTA promotes complementary relationships rather than competitive ones; living in harmony with the environment instead of irrational resource exploitation; defending social property against extreme privatization.
  8. The PTA guides the participating countries toward a process of integration based on solidarity which gives priority to national companies as exclusive providers to public entities.
  9. With this Peoples Trade Agreement (PTA), Bolivia proposes to achieve a true integration which transcends commercial and economic spheres- whose philosophy is ‘to achieve a development which is based on communitarian principals and is profoundly just - taking into account national differences.'
  10. The PTA proposes a different logic for relationship between human beings, a different model of life together, not based on competition and a zeal for consumption, which does not take advantage of or exploit to the maximum labor and natural resources.