The Ministry of Commerce, Industry and Tourism has presented its “Foreign Trade Policy for internationalization and sustainable productive development”, which aims to “evolve from an extractivist economy towards a decarbonized, inclusive, sustainable and knowledge-based productive model, in order to internationalize the productive apparatus and the regions”.

This policy defines five main lines of action: i) attracting investment; ii) internationalization from the territories; iii) integration with Latin America, the Caribbean, Asia and Africa; iv) promotion of multilateralism; and v) review of agreements with the United States, Mexico and Europe. With this, by the end of the current government’s four-year term, exports of non-mining-energy goods are expected to generate more than USD 23 billion.

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The first question to ask is whether this policy will help us to grow exports and diversify the products we sell abroad. This should be the main driver for the development of this policy, for which it is important to work in coordination with all the entities that can intervene in foreign trade and investment attraction.

It is useless to have a policy with well-defined objectives, but in which other portfolios are not adequately coordinated for its execution. The export or foreign trade policy must be a State policy, the responsibility of which involves the entire public sector, not just the Ministry of Commerce, Industry and Tourism.

On the other hand, the internationalization of the Colombian economy implies deepening trade relations with our trading partners. The Government’s announcements to reduce gasoline consumption in order to reduce imports of this good, reflects the consideration that exporting is good, but importing is bad; that in order to adjust the trade balance it is necessary to reduce foreign purchases, without understanding that in order to export it is necessary to import.

The policy has valuable elements from the point of view of seeking productive bets regionally, as well as diversifying markets, since this would allow us to increase the number of exporting companies in the country.

However, these lines of work are not new, they are elements that have been worked on since previous years, so the challenge is great for this new approach to deepen the internationalization of the country.

The country does not have a business structure that is thinking about the export market. The country’s small and medium-sized companies feel comfortable selling in the domestic market, where they do not have a series of regulatory restrictions that make companies decline in their intention to export. It is essential to work on trade facilitation and regulatory improvements that allow companies to export in an expeditious manner.

This policy must be accompanied by a deregulation of the sector, which involves the modernization of the DIAN and the issuance of new customs regulations that, with technology and risk management, will facilitate foreign trade operations.

Count on Analdex to work on behalf of companies and their development, which will bring benefits in terms of income and jobs for the different regions of the country.

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