The Deals for the economic growth that Colombian President Duque set up will contribute a sum of $ 57 billion by 2022
The Colombian government raised its goals after making deals with 10 additional sectors, for a total of 22 sectors and 110 unions. The launch of the ‘Colombia exports +’ plan was also announced.
After about five months since the first round of the deals for the economic growth was signed, between President Iván Duque, Vice President, Marta Lucía Ramírez, and 12 productive sectors of the country, yesterday another 10 economic sectors added up to the commitment of boosting local production.
In an event held at the Teatro Colón in Bogotá, the pharmaceutical, fruit, milk, fishing and aquaculture, palm, sugarcane, energy, mining, hydrocarbon and infrastructure sectors joined the agreements; Therefore, the initiative will now be driven by 110 guilds from 22 productive fronts.
The Colombian Government announced a significant rethinking of the growth goals in terms of employment, productivity and exports that would be achieved at the end of its management.
The above, given that in the first round an increase in production of $ 13,4 billion, the creation of 866.000 new jobs and increasing exports, was discussed.
However, yesterday it was announced that production is expected to rise by $ 57 billion, which would mean a 325% difference compared to what was originally stated in this indicator. Likewise, it is projected that by the end of 2022 1.1 million new formal jobs will have been created, which means an increase of 27% compared to the initial goal.
As for exports, these should increase by US $ 10.000 million, for which, according to Ramírez during her presentation, on February 18, the Minister of Commerce, Industry and Tourism, José Manuel Restrepo, will launch the program 'Colombia exports + '.
“We need Colombia to be inserted in global value chains and for that reason a good part of our effort will be oriented to increase exports. We need it urgently”, stated the Vice President.
The foregoing is especially important considering that in 2019 the outstanding growth of the Colombian economy compared to the average of the region, which is expected to be around 3.2%, was mainly driven by domestic consumption, while external sales had a fall that contributed to make the nation’s trade balance the worst since 2016.
In turn, President Iván Duque stated that a next stage of this project will be to travel to the regions to integrate more members of the private sector, calling other sectors to join such as the financial and health sectors, which have not yet joined the deals.
So far, according to official calculations, the implementation progress of the agreements of the first phase is around 85%, measured in terms of actions taken and in process. However, the Vice President acknowledged that there is still no certainty about the amount of work that has been generated.
On the other hand, Bruce Mac Master, president of the Andi, said that, although it is important to support and promote this type of initiatives that bring the private and the public sectors in tune, “I am not sure if they will be able to generate 1,1 million new jobs in two years, but I think most important is that we set the goals, make efforts and have a will to action. ”
‘Economic growth alone is not enough,’ said the Vice President.
In her presentation at the Teatro Colón, Marta Lucía Ramírez, emphasized the commitment that entrepreneurs must have with this project, considering that “if the Government is taking care of all the bottlenecks that make life of entrepreneurs difficult today, this must result into better productive activity, growth, more jobs and more exports”. To which she added that, although Colombia is performing well at the macroeconomic level, that must be transferred to the whole society.
Tuesday, January 28, 2020
Adriana Carolina Leal Acosta