Inside Latin America Today, H.E. Ms Virginia Greville.

Global awareness of Latin America is growing as its nations assert themselves in various ways.  The four countries to which Ms Greville is accredited represent many aspects of what is most exciting about Latin America - but also what is worrying. Chile and Colombia have right-of-centre governments and open economies and actively seek both foreign investment and trade and political ties with Australia.  Ecuador and Bolivia have popular left-wing governments and a much closer ideological identification with Venezuela's populist strongman Hugo Chavez, who in turn draws inspiration from Cuba's Fidel Castro.  At the same time these two countries struggle to attract investment and lift their populations out of poverty.  But President Chavez is important to Colombia as well and President Juan Manuel Santos, for one, has made significant overtures to both Venezuela and Ecuador in the first few months of his administration.  And despite ideological differences, the pressure is on Chile and Bolivia to come to some understanding on borders and access to the sea. To explore the trends affecting Latin America today we are pleased to welcome Australia's ambassador to Chile, Colombia, Ecuador and Bolivia, H.E. Ms Virginia Greville.  She was also accredited to Peru for more than a year. Previously Ms Greville was Australia’s chief negotiator on the Australia-Chile Free Trade Agreement while concurrently Assistant Secretary, Market Development, Business Liaison and Regional Trade Policy Branch and deputy chief negotiator on free trade agreement negotiations with the Gulf states (in 2007-08).  She has also been lead agriculture negotiator for the China Free Trade Agreement (2005-07) and Assistant Secretary of the Trade Commitments Branch (2004-05).   Overseas, Ms Greville served as Minister Counsellor, Agriculture at the Australian Embassy, Washington, DC, from 2000 until 2003.  She returned to Australia as a senior agriculture negotiator for the Australia-US Free Trade Agreement (2003-4) and then, as Assistant Secretary of the Trade Commitments Branch (2004-05), she was responsible for its ratification and implementation.