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Today the Finance Ministers of the Western Hemisphere met to discuss the economic and financial challenges confronting our region. Ministers fully recognize our interdependence and our shared interests. Our economies are closely linked by trade, investment, and financial flows, and we believe there is broad scope for expanding those linkages. Our purpose in meeting was to discuss policy approaches to these shared challenges with the aim of increasing our effectiveness through cooperation among all economies, small as well as large.
Our discussions centered first and foremost on productivity growth. The focus extended beyond the latest cyclical changes to the challenge of achieving sustained growth and rising living standards. Our shared view, confirmed by experience, is that good governance and the rule of law, strong institutions, macroeconomic and financial stability, investment in people, and open, free markets are the essential underpinnings of growth. Where and when this environment has been in place, the people of this region, as in other regions, have responded vigorously. High productivity growth has been achieved in some high-income countries, demonstrating their ability to compete on the basis of sophisticated technology and know-how, rather than low wages. For lower income countries, there is clearly scope for a dramatic increase in productivity growth, as the environment for building human and physical capital is strengthened. We discussed developments related to financial flows to the region. In this regard, we understand the importance of pursuing sound policies so that capital markets contribute to stable, long-term growth.
Another area of shared interest is the fight against terrorist finance, money laundering, and tax evasion. We agreed that Finance Ministers have a critical contribution to make in this context to global stability and the rule of law. We are committed to work to ensure that our financial institutions are not abused and financial flows within countries or across borders do not support illegal activity. Finance Ministers recognize the importance of denying terrorists safe haven in our countries and access to our financial systems. Today, Ministers endorsed an action plan that expresses our undiminished commitment to uphold international standards and take concrete steps to combat the financing of terrorism.
We discussed the goal of regional trade integration at some length. All agree that our joint efforts to reduce protectionism, lower barriers to trade and investment, and encourage capital flows are among the most important that we can undertake to spur productivity growth. These efforts require the active participation of finance ministries in negotiations, especially those affecting financial services and financial markets. The European experience suggests we have only begun to scratch the surface of the benefits flowing from closer integration. We look forward to entering the final stage of the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA) negotiations following the Quito Ministerial. We remain committed to the established target of completing the FTAA negotiations by January 2005.