Argentina

Juan Jose Alberto ("Jackie") Sortheix of Buenos Aires has served in distinguished executive roles in an extraordinary public service career, initially with the General Directorate of Internal Revenue of Argentina where he was responsible for drafting of legislation establishing the Value Added Tax and Customs Tariff systems of Argentina. Jackie also served with the Argentine Delegation to the IMF and led delegations that negotiated double taxation avoidance treaties with Austria, Finland and Germany. During his distinguished service as Asst. Secretary General of the Customs Cooperation Council (now World Customs Organization) in Brussels, Jackie was responsible for development of the Harmonized Commodity Description and Coding System (HS) that has become adopted as the basis for the customs tariffs of virtually all trading nations of the world.

Jackie is now a private consultant to governments and private firms and serves as Chairman on the boards of several Argentine corporations. He is a consultant to ALADI, the Latin American Integration Association and supervised revisions of its tariff system to NALADISA. He provided crucial leadership with development of a "Single Version in Spanish of the Harmonized System" by the OAS, the General Directorate of Customs of Mexico and Secretariat of the Mutual Assistance Agreement of National Directors of Customs of Latin America, Spain and Portugal. Jackie is an authority on all Latin American trade agreements and has participated in negotiation of all current agreements, including MERCOSUR. Jackie is an Attorney at Law, a distinguished graduate of the National University of Buenos Aires.

Jackie may be contacted at:
Juan Jose Sortheix
Juncal 615 Piso 10 "D"
1062 Buenos Aires, Argentina
Tel: (54)(1)(14) 312-0796
Fax: (54)(1)(14) 813-1848
E-Mail: sortheix@yahoo.com