- Mercosur is a sub-regional bloc of South American Countries.
- Its purpose is to promote free trade and the fluid movement of goods, people, and currency
- Its full members are Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay, Uruguay and Venezuela.
- Its associate countries are Bolivia, Chile, Peru, Colombia, Ecuador and Suriname
- The Mercusor trading bloc was established in 1991
- Headquarter : Montevideo (Uruguay)
- Brazil has asked India to expand its commercial and multilateral footprints in South America by expanding its relation with MERCOSUR
Recent News:
Venezuela’s membership was revoked.
Venezuela was blocked after it failed to comply with its commitments given when it had joined the group in 2012. It also failed to meet December 1, 2016 deadline to adopt certain standards and rules required for membership of the bloc. The bloc considered Venezuela as burden for the economic group due to its poor performance of the economy, colliding with the goals of the bloc. It is also suffering from broken economic system (world’s highest inflation and crumbling currency), corruption problem and is close to civil unrest. Since 2015, tensions between Venezuela and its Mercosur partners had exacerbated. Earlier in 2016, the bloc had stopped Venezuela from assuming the rotating presidency.