Hacktivists leak 178,000 documents from Colombia’s military
Colombia’s State sentenced for exterminating political party
Colombia’s capital Bogota awarded for failing crime policy
OAS urges Colombia to release people arrested over...
Colombia’s war crimes tribunal hears notorious former warlord
Colombia’s GDP and GNI
Panama arrests US citizen suspected in Colombia of...
Colombia seeking mastermind behind Paraguay prosecutor kill plot
Colombia’s government and ELN rebels overcome “crisis” in...
Bogota
  • About
  • Support
  • Newsletter
  • Contact
Colombia News | Colombia Reports
  • News
    • General
    • Analysis
    • War and peace
    • Elections
    • Economy
    • Culture
    • Sports
    • Science and Tech
  • Travel
    • General
    • Bogota
    • Medellin
    • Cali
    • Cartagena
    • Antioquia
    • Caribbean
    • Pacific
    • Coffee region
    • Amazon
    • Southwest Colombia
    • Northeast Colombia
    • Central Colombia
  • Data
    • Economy
    • Crime and security
    • War and peace
    • Development
    • Cities
    • Regions
    • Provinces
  • Profiles
    • Organized crime
    • Politics
    • Armed conflict
    • Economy
    • Sports
  • Lite
  • Opinion
President Ivan Duque (Image: President's Office)
Economy

Duque vows to increase Colombia’s exports by 50% and curb unemployment

by Adriaan Alsema August 6, 2019

Colombia’s government on Monday said it expected to grow exports with more than 50% and create 866,000 jobs in the coming four years.

President Ivan Duque and Vice-President Marta Lucia Ramirez announced 12 pacts with business leaders that would boost exports and turn the country’s accelerating unemployment rate around.

The central bank last week lowered the country’s economic growth rate projection by 0.5 percentage points, citing stagnating exports and domestic consumption.

Duque last year lowered taxes for corporations, claiming this would generate jobs, but it didn’t.

In fact, unemployment that has been on the increase since 2015 accelerated and has gone up 0.6 percentage points since Duque took office and was on average 10.1% over the past year.

Ramirez, who has been leading the negotiations with the private sector, said she found the solution to both the country’s stagnated exports and accelerating unemployment through “Pacts for Economic Growth and Job Creation.”

“In each sector, we will seek to strengthen the regions so that they can have growth and greater competitiveness,” the vice-president said.

Duque said that “the goal of all this work is for Colombia to grow and generate employment, but also to generate income to make great social transformations.”

Let’s get to work to make this happen and, as we say so often, here we are and forward we go!

President Ivan Duque

Sectors involved in Duque’s growth pacts

  • Food products
  • Services
  • Cacao
  • Meat
  • Construction
  • Creative
  • Forestry
  • Fashion
  • Mobility
  • Chemistry
  • ICT
  • Tourism

Curiously, Labor Minister Alicia Arango has apparently not been involved in the negotiations and will not be involved in the execution of any of the pacts.

The ministries of Trade, ICT, Culture, Transport, Agriculture, Housing and Environment will be involved.

Another curiosity is that one of the pacts, that of cacao, is in fact a redesigned version of the counternarcotics strategy to replace coca with legal crops like cacao that has been virtually on hold since Duque took office in August last year.

That particular pact seeks to substitute 50,000 hectares of coca with cacao, according to the Vice President’s Office.

exportsunemployment

Trending

  • Panama arrests US citizen suspected in Colombia of murdering fiancé

  • Colombia’s capital Bogota awarded for failing crime policy

  • Colombia’s war crimes tribunal hears notorious former warlord

For patrons

Downloads for patrons

Related articles

  • Foreign trade

  • Labor and unemployment

  • Unemployment in Colombia drops to pandemic’s lowest level

  • Twitter
  • Email
  • Rss

@2008-2019 - Colombia Reports. All Rights Reserved.
Powered by Digitale Zaken and Parrolabs


Back To Top
Colombia News | Colombia Reports
  • News
    • General
    • Analysis
    • War and peace
    • Elections
    • Economy
    • Culture
    • Sports
    • Science and Tech
  • Travel
    • General
    • Bogota
    • Medellin
    • Cali
    • Cartagena
    • Antioquia
    • Caribbean
    • Pacific
    • Coffee region
    • Amazon
    • Southwest Colombia
    • Northeast Colombia
    • Central Colombia
  • Data
    • Economy
    • Crime and security
    • War and peace
    • Development
    • Cities
    • Regions
    • Provinces
  • Profiles
    • Organized crime
    • Politics
    • Armed conflict
    • Economy
    • Sports
  • Lite
  • Opinion