Colombia thrilled about Korea FTA
Korea Times, Seoul
Colombia thrilled about Korea FTA
By Kang Hyun-kyung
11 May 2014
Colombia is set to gain a foothold in East Asia after a free trade agreement is signed with Korea.
Ambassador Tito Saul Pinilla predicted that on the Colombian side, the trade pact will be a boon particularly for Colombian farmers and small- and medium-sized companies.
“They will have more access to the Korean market. Given that Korea is close to China, Japan and Indonesia, Colombian farmers and businesspeople are expected to have more access to these economies as well, once the trade pact goes into effect,” he claimed during a recent interview with The Korea Times.
The new Colombian ambassador noted that automakers and auto parts producers in his country remained wary about the implementation of the trade pact as heated competition with their Korean counterparts will be inevitable.
Despite this, Pinilla, a former military general, is optimistic that the overall benefits of free trade with Korea will be strong enough to outweigh possible losses in some sectors.
The National Assembly approved the free trade agreement with Colombia last week. The Colombian parliament is expected to ratify it sooner or later.
If the domestic processes in the two countries are completed, the pact will take effect later this year.
Ambassador Pinilla hinted that the implementation of the Korea-Colombia free trade pact will be a milestone event in bilateral relations as they are to become close economic partners.
“We are close friends. And we are blood brothers as Colombia sent some 4,300 troops to South Korea during the Korean War,” the envoy noted.
Of those 4,300, 163 Colombian soldiers were killed and more than 500 were wounded during and after the bloody war that lasted for three years beginning in 1950.
Ambassador Pinilla said it was only in the recent six or seven years when Colombia began to take Korea as a serious trade partner in Asia, decades after the two sides’ close cooperation in the defense area.
The two sides upgraded bilateral relations into strategic partners during the Lee Myung-bak government.
The Latin American country’s ambition to become a safer and more prosperous economy is a key driver to Colombia’s changing perception of Korea.
Pinilla described Colombia as a “regional power,” noting that the country has achieved rapid economic growth and created many jobs in recent years.
“Colombia is now safer as our government has taken a set of measures to improve security conditions. On the one hand, the government is trying to battle against organized crime facilitated by drug trafficking, and on the other hand it is seeking a peace deal with them,” Pinilla said.
The dual policy has made the Latin American country safer, he said. The envoy is excited about the Korean business delegation’s forthcoming visit to Colombia.
CEOs from 10 financial companies, including Daewoo Securities, are scheduled to fly to Colombia in June after their first stop in Mexico.
“We want many Korean investors to visit Colombia to see that the country is safe enough to do business,” he said.
He said people-to-people exchanges especially in education, and science and technology are two other areas he is heavily focused on to make this happen.
