The entity in charge of promoting Colombia abroad as a tourist and investment destination has changed name and
Proexport, the 22-year-old entity that promotes Colombian exports and tourism, will from now on be called Procolombia.
According to ProColombia president Maria Claude Lacouture, the change in name is not the only thing that’s new. The body will also bring to light new projects and plans that aim to increase the country’s productivity, weekly Semana reported.
The change came with the necessity of updating the entity as Colombia is being exposed to more opportunities than before.
“In the last two decades the country has changed dramatically, exports have increased more than eight times; foreign direct investment, six times; Gross Domestic Product (GDP) four times.” said Lacouture, according to Semana.
In order to promote export, Procolombia will bolster small and medium-sized companies. According to Lacouture, the entity will chose 30 of the small and medium-sized companies for which Procolombia will provide advise and support in order to help the companies make their way in the international market.
“Today, of more than 1.3 million signatures that are registered, only 3,170 have exported steadily in the last three years. One of the programs is to promote small and medium enterprises,” said Procolombia president.
In pursuit of increasing the Colombian export, the newly named entity will put emphasis on the Multilatinas program and will additionally conduce a ‘Export Mentoring’ plan whose aim is to allow bigger companies leverage the smaller ones, according to Lacouture.
“We have the Multilatinas program, whose objective is to position Colombian companies internationally, following the footsteps of those who have already ventured and who are very successful such as Nutresa, Argos, ISA, Alpina, among others. We have identified 127 companies that could become multinationals.” said Lacouture.
In regards to tourism, the Procolombia president acknowledged the importance of its role and for this reason the entity will continue working on improving the tourism sector and attracting big numbers of visitors. According to Lacouture, the goal is to attract more than four millions of tourists each year.