UN General Assembly
1959

111. Through ECLA a dynamic impulse was given this year to the project of a Latin American common market, a long-cherished ambition of our countries which has hitherto been unrealized but which has assumed new significance in the light of experience in Europe and Africa. The common market answers the need of the Latin American community for industrializing, increasing its agricultural productivity and dealing with the structural problems of its development. We have now realized that it is only by pooling our productive resources and our markets that we can maintain a rate of growth that will enable the Latin American countries to draw nearer to the more industrialized countries and to cope with the problems caused by the rapid increase in population. Under present conditions the isolated development of national economies scatters our resources, reduces our markets and does not allow us to take full advantage of the dynamic factor of population growth.