Colombian President, Gustavo Petroannounced this Wednesday that his government began to renegotiate the Free Trade Agreement (FTA) with the United States, a commercial instrument that has been in force for eleven years between the two countries.
“I want to publicly announce that its renegotiation (of the FTA) begins”said the head of state during a meeting with coffee growers held in the town of Pitalito, in the department of Huila (south).
The Colombian ruler justified the decision due to the supposed disadvantages that Colombia has with the United States as a result of the signing of the FTA in which sectors of national production cannot compete with those of that country.
“If I wanted to replace that corn with Colombian corn, I would have 1,200,000 more jobs, that is, wealth. Why can’t I do it? Because the Free Trade Agreement with the United States, which they signed a few years ago, prohibits me.”he assured.
For Petro, wealth is not in extraction, but in production, and that what is being experienced at the moment is the crisis of the extraction model.
In this direction, he considered that the renegotiation of the FTA will be one of the pillars to return to that productive model, in which one of the bases will be the industrialization of agriculture, always with greater investment in human capital.
“If we are going to industrialize, we need knowledge, that means promoting the public university, one of the priority axes of this Government”he explained.
Renegotiating the FTA with the United States was a flag of Petro during his campaign for the Presidency. At the time, the Colombian American Chamber of Commerce (AmCham Colombia) highlighted that this instrument has allowed to increase trade between the two countries.
He also recalled that 11,497 Colombian products have zero-tariff access to the United States thanks to the FTA, while ten years ago there were 5,500.
In addition, in the last 10 years, the United States has been the main foreign investor in the country, money that has boosted sectors such as mining, manufacturing, the financial system, professional, scientific, and technical services; wholesale trade; information system; electrical products and computers; and electrical equipment and its accessories.
Source: EFE
Source: Gestion
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