Evolution of Foreign Trade

2. Good News from Colombia

Good News from Colombia

• On July 20, commemorating Independence Day in Colombia, the Congress of the Republic was installed for the 2022-2026 period. This will be the first time that legislators from the center-left will be the majority. For more information, please visit the following link.

• On August 7, Gustavo Petro will assume the Presidency of the Republic. Among the priorities of the new government will be a tax reform that will seek to increase collection, reforms to the political system to combat corruption, reform of the pension system, a greater focus on environmental sustainability, strengthening of the popular economy, and reform of the health system. For more information, please visit the following link.

• Colombia and the United Arab Emirates signed a Memorandum of Understanding on energy cooperation. The agreement signed between the Ministry of Mines and Energy of Colombia and the Department of Energy of the

Emirate of Abu Dhabi seeks to promote capacity building and the exchange of knowledge and information, thus promoting cooperation on scientific, technical, technological, administrative, and business-related matters in the energy sector. For more information, please visit the following link.

• Thanks to the solid and dynamic recovery of the Colombian economy, the International Monetary Fund revised its projection of GDP growth for 2022 upwards, estimating that the country will grow by 6.3%, which is 0.5 percentage points higher than its estimate from last April. With this, the Colombian economy will have the best performance in 2022, standing well above the regional average, estimated at 3.0%. For more information, please visit the following link.

• Colombia takes another step to position itself at the forefront of financial matters. After Mexico and Brazil, it becomes the third Latin American country to adopt Open Finance, a financial information exchange model that seeks to streamline and improve financial services. The decree issued by the Ministry of Finance, through which this model is adopted, includes regulation for payments originated through low-value payment systems, guidelines for personal data processing, and adoption of digital ecosystems and technological and security standards to guarantee the correct development of the open financial architecture. For more information, please visit the following link.

• Under a loan signed by the Government of Colombia with the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) in 2020, the country achieved exports and business expectations in knowledge-based services for more than US$300 million between April 2020 and May 2022. For more information, please visit the following link.