VANCOUVER - International Trade Minister David Emerson will play host to his U.S. and Mexican counterparts in Vancouver next week at a meeting of the NAFTA Free Trade Commission.
U.S. Trade Representative Susan Schwab and Mexico's Secretary of the Economy Eduardo Sojo will sit down Monday and Tuesday for a series of bilateral meetings and a joint session.
Emerson says the commission has moved away from the highly technical sessions for operating the 13-year-old North American Free Trade Agreement to focus more on strategic fundamentals
The Vancouver meeting's agenda will look at how to make free trade agreements NAFTA partners have with other countries more compatible with the North American treaty.
They'll also talk about ways to further open trade barriers without reopening NAFTA and changes to broaden the number of duty-free products included under NAFTA.
Schwab says in a statement that trade among the three signatories has flourished since NAFTA came into force in 1994.
Emerson said renewed questions over softwood lumber exports likely won't come up at the NAFTA session but he and Schwab will likely discuss the issue at their bilateral meeting.
The United States is taking complaints about Canada's compliance with the 10-month-old softwood lumber managed-trade agreement to an arbitration panel.
The Vancouver meetings take place a week before Prime Minister Stephen Harper, U.S. President George W. Bush and Mexican President Felipe Calderon meet at Montebello, Que.
