The Colombian government proposed the idea of reclassifying exports as part of the strategy to triple non-traditional exports within 10 years, financial publication Portafolio reported Monday.
“The Colombian government is on board with the aim of tripling non-traditional exports within a decade,” said Trade Minister Sergio Diaz-Granados to the National Association of Foreign Trade, (ANALDEX).
One of the steps the government is taking to achieve this goal is to abandon the terms “traditional” and “non-traditional” exports and instead use the more internationally comparable “mineral” and “non-mineral exports.”
With the recent export boom in mineral energy which reduced non-traditional exports to 30% of total Colombian exports in the first semester of 2011, came the fear of Dutch disease – the phenomenon of an increase in the exploitation of natural resources leading to a declining in a country’s manufacturing industry.
This led to Javier Diaz, the president of the National Association of Foreign Trade, (ANALDEX) putting forward the idea of tripling non-traditional exports within a decade.
At the same event the minister said there is a strategy to increase exports to from $17 billion this year to $51 billion by 2021. The minister added that by 2014 Colombia will have 13 trade agreements with 13 different countries.