In June 1990, U.S. President George Bush announced an "Enterprise for the Americas Initiative" to improve the investment climate by creating "a hemisphere-wide free trade zone."

He praised President Lacalle for being the first leader to call him when he announced his Enterprise for the Americas Initiative, a plan to open up trade and investment possibilities in the region.

On the same day Chile became the first country to sign a debt-reduction agreement under the US "Enterprise for the Americas Initiative" [see above].

George Bush is also popular in Latin America, uncommonly so for a Republican President, and he has proclaimed his own Enterprise for the Americas Initiative.

And we'll get more good American jobs within our own hemisphere through the North American Free Trade Agreement, and through the Enterprise for the Americas Initiative.

The White House ceremony was planned to coincide with the first anniversary of Mr. Bush's program, which is called the Enterprise for the Americas Initiative.

Known as the Enterprise for the Americas Initiative, the plan calls for free trade, easier access of foreign investments and reduction of Latin American countries' debts to the United States Government.

Instead, in June 1990 U.S. President George H. W. Bush announced the Enterprise for the Americas Initiative with the goal of achieving hemispheric free trade by 2000.

Treasury officials said the meeting would seek to persuade the ministers to take new steps in President Bush's Enterprise for the Americas Initiative, to promote market-oriented reforms as well as investment.

The United States recently sent ripples through many of the Caribbean's thin economies by announcing its Enterprise for the Americas Initiative, an ambitious two-way free-trade program.