among the products that obtained the benefit of free access to the US market. Signed into

law on December 4, 1991, the ATPA (19 U.S.C. 3201) provided tariff benefits to

Ecuador, Colombia, Peru, and Bolivia and was scheduled to expire on December 4,

2001.2 This decision has enabled Ecuador's flower trade to take off in the world market

(Holt 2000), and has enabled the Ecuadorian flower industry to allocate about 70% of its

production to the US market (Mena Pozo 1999).

 The easy commercialization of flowers in the US market as a consequence of the

ATPA, allows this industry a short time of investment return. Mena Pozo (1999) states

that investors are encouraged to invest in flowers due to the average of 3 years in which

they could get back all their investments.3 Favorable measures for NTAEs were arranged

in the Ecuadorian realm also. Among these measures is the so-called "tercerizaci6n,

which was a regulation that allowed NTAEs to temporarily contract workers on their

plantations, without offering_social security and other standard benefits scheduled for

workers in Ecuador. This policy permitted greater control over salaries by flower

agribusiness, which was important to keep competitive prices of the product in

international markets.

 A final advantage for NTAEs in Ecuador, particularly the flower agribusiness, was

the favorable conversion between the currency used to pay services and the one obtained

from trading the product. At the time of the rise of flower agribusiness, during the 1980s

and 1990s, the exchange rate fluctuated from 60 sucres4 in 1984 to 25,000 sucres in 2000.



2 The renewal of the ATPA with regard to flowers was resolved in 2002. This decision will need to be
made again in 2005 (Anderson 2003).
3 Korovkin (2002) says "in 1983 the initial investment per one hectare of roses in Ecuador was $300,000 as
compared to $1,300,000 in the US and the Netherlands, and $600,000 in Israel (Korovkin 2002: 5).
4 Sucre was the currency of Ecuador since its republican inception in 1830 until 2000 when this country
officially adopted the US dollar as national currency.