City Report: Barranquilla
COLOMBIA’S “GOLDEN GATE” BECKONS FOR BUSINESS WITH U.S. NEARSHORING, CALL CENTERS, AND INVESTMENT
TABLE OF CONTENTS SPECIAL REPORT
CITY REPORT: BARRANQUILLA
Colombia’s fourth-largest metro area by population, the port city of Barranquilla is now building a reputation as a hub for “nearshoring,” both in manufacturing for U.S. sales and in call centers for U.S. clients.
How furniture maker Kannoa moved production from China to Barranquilla, employing about 130 people in Colombia and 40 in Miami.
Call center company Atlantic Quantum Innovation is building a new facility to boost employment to 4,500.
MOVING TO MIAMI
Why Barranquilla companies like Finotex and Procaps are investing in South Florida.
Barranquilla’s pre-Lenten Carnival shines as Colombia’s largest cultural extravaganza.
SNAPSHOTS
Four international stars from the Colombian city live or have lived in Greater Miami.
PUBLISHER
Richard Roffman
EDITOR-IN-CHIEF
J.P. Faber
ASSOCIATE PUBLISHER
Gail Feldman
SENIOR VP INTERNATIONAL
Manny Mencia
DIRECTOR OF OPERATIONS
Monica Del Carpio-Raucci
SALES AND PARTNERSHIPS
Sherry Adams
Amy Donner
Andrew Kardonski
Gail Scott
MANAGING EDITOR
Kylie Wang
ASSOCIATE EDITOR
Yousra Benkirane
WRITER
Doreen Hemlock
ART DIRECTOR
Jon Braeley
PHOTOGRAPHERS
Rodolfo Benitez
PRODUCTION DIRECTOR
Toni Kirkland
CIRCULATION & DISTRIBUTION
CircIntel
BOARD OF ADVISORS
Ivan Barrios, World Trade Center Miami
Ralph Cutié, Miami International Airport
Roberto Munoz, The Global Financial Group
Gary Goldfarb, Interport
Bill Johnson, Strategic Economic Forum
David Schwartz, FIBA
EDITORIAL BOARD
Alice Ancona, World Trade Center Miami
Greg Chin, Miami International Airport
Paul Griebel, Venture for America
James Kohnstamm, Beacon Council
John Price, Americas Market Intelligence
Tiffany Comprés, FisherBroyles
TJ Villamil, Enterprise Florida
Global Miami Magazine is published monthly by Global Cities Media, LLC. 1200 Anastasia Ave., Suite 217, Coral Gables, FL 33134. Telephone: (305) 452-0501. Copyright 2023 by Global Cities Media. All rights reserved. Reproduction in whole or part of any text, photograph, or illustration without prior written permission from the publisher is strictly prohibited. Send address changes to subscriptions@ globalmiamimagazine.com. General mailbox email and letters to editor@globalmiamimagazine.com
In today’s fast-paced market, the only way to close the gap with your trading partners is to improve the supply chain. To do this, you will need a group of dedicated, hardworking professionals with 40 years of experience in logistics and ocean transportation. You will need more than just excellent customer service. You will want to work with a company striving to be better and more innovative. At Seaboard Marine, your customers are closer because our customers are at the center of everything we do.
City Report: Barranquilla
MANUFACTURING, NEARSHORING, CALL CENTERS, AND INVESTMENT
TECNOGLASS IS THE LARGEST MANUFACTURER IN BARRANQUILLA, MAKING SPECIALTY WINDOWS USED IN HIGH-RISES ACROSS LATIN AMERICA, THE U.S., AND FLORIDA, INCLUDING MIAMI’S BRICKELL CITY CENTRE AND RELATED GROUP’S PROJECTS.
BY DOREEN HEMLOCK
What’s most important is people. Everyone in Tecnoglass has my personal phone number and email.
Barranquilla, Colombia – This tropical city off the Caribbean coast is best known overseas for its cultural and sports treasures: its festive Carnival, singer Shakira, actress Sofia Vergara, fashion designer Silvia Tcherassi, and baseball great Edgar Renteria, to name a few.
Now, the port city is building a reputation as a hub for “nearshoring,” both in manufacturing for U.S. sales and in call centers for U.S. clients. It’s also emerging as a model for sustainability. Its public parks program just won a global prize, chosen among entries from 155 cities. And it’s the first area in Colombia rolling out English studies in all public middle and high schools, aiming to ensure the language skills for long-term business with its top trade partner, the United States.
Colombia’s fourth-largest metro area by population, Barranquilla is leveraging its location as the country’s biggest city close to the U.S. It’s just 2.5 hours by air from Miami, a flight shorter than the Miami-New York route. Executives from Florida can fly in and out the same day. And Barranquilla is just three to four days by ship
CHRISTIAN DAES, ABOVE, COO OF TECNOGLASS
Miami
Barranquilla
COLOMBIA
Our orientation as a port city is international. We see the United States as our natural partner and Florida as our primary gateway to the U.S.
VICKY IBAÑEZ, SHOWN RIGHT, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR OF AMCHAM-BARRANQUILLA
from South Florida, with freight costs now as low as $1,600 for a 40-foot container, cheaper than many transits within Colombia or the U.S. itself.
“Our orientation as a port city is international. We see the United States as our natural partner and Florida as our primary gateway to the U.S.,” says Vicky Ibañez, executive director of AmCham Barranquilla, the largest American Chamber of Commerce in Colombia relative to city size.
BUILDING ON ITS HISTORY AS COLOMBIA’S “GOLDEN GATE”
Barranquilla’s location by the Caribbean and proximity to Florida has long been key to its development. In the early 1900s, especially around World War II, its seaport welcomed diverse immigrants, including Jews from Europe and Middle Easterners, both Christian and Muslim. That influx prompted its nickname, “Colombia’s Golden Gate,” and explains why Middle Eastern food is now considered “local” cuisine.
Barranquilla at a Glance
Population: 1.2 million in the city proper and 2.7 million in the Atlantico Department (state).
Ranking: Capital of Atlantico Department and Colombia’s fourth-most populous city.
Economy: Manufacturing and port activities, with 25-plus industrial parks and four free-trade zones; growing tourism. Atlantico represents about 4 percent of Colombia’s economy and 5 percent of its population.
Economic Growth: About 4 percent yearly over the past decade, faster than Colombia’s national average, thanks largely to closer collaboration between the public and private sectors.
Trade: Exports of $2.4 billion in 2022, with the U.S. as its top trade partner.
Links to South Florida: Daily flights to Miami and Fort Lauderdale that take about 2.5 hours; at least twice a week shipping service to South Florida, with freight arriving in as little as three days.
Bogota
Medellin
Santa Marta
Cartagena
Source: ProBarranquilla agency; AmCham Barranquilla.
The city also was the launchpad for Colombian aviation. The airline that became Avianca, Colombia’s flag carrier, began in Barranquilla in 1919, making it the world’s second-oldest, after the Netherlands’ KLM. Initial flights from the airport, named Ernesto Cortissoz for an Avianca president, headed to South Florida.
When Colombia started free trade-zones to encourage exports, Barranquilla opened the first one – back in 1958. That zone now hosts some 70 companies, most selling to the U.S.
Still, it’s only been in the past 16 years that Barranquilla has shaken off its late 20th century doldrums to again shine among Colombia’s dynamos. The spark came from a group of visionary mayors led by Alex Char, the son of a wealthy family that owns Colombia’s Olimpica supermarkets and other businesses. Char was elected in 2007, pledging to forge a public-private partnership and tackle such pressing problems as severe flooding after rains. He delivered, even installing underground pipes to channel rainwater. Barred from consecutive terms, he was re-elected in 2015 and just won re-election for another four-year term starting in January. Peers from his group have won in between, providing continuity in policy and laying out a city plan through 2100, with an emphasis on international business.
“The most important change in these 16 years is our mentality. Now, we think big and long-term,” says Lelio Sotomonte, who runs the city’s biggest call center, Atlantic Quantum Innovation, which serves many U.S. clients. “We’re reclaiming our role as Colombia’s Golden Gate.”
TECNOGLASS: BARRANQUILLA’S LARGEST MANUFACTURER
The clearest example of Barranquilla’s U.S. export success is Tecnoglass, a company founded by a family of Middle Eastern heritage. It is now
listed on the New York Stock Exchange and will soon reach $1 billion in sales. The company makes specialty windows used in numerous high-rises across Florida and the U.S., including Miami’s Brickell City Centre, One Thousand Museum Tower, and Related Group’s projects.
Tecnoglass started out in 1983 producing solar water heaters for Colombian homes but pivoted with changing market conditions. In the 1990s, it began exporting specialty glass to Miami, and in the 2000s, started selling its specialty windows in South Florida. In the 2010s, it listed its stock on Wall Street, first on the NASDAQ exchange. Last year, it posted sales topping $716 million, almost all in the U.S., from Miami to Chicago and as far west as San Francisco, says chief operating officer Christian Daes.
“We went public on Wall Street not for money, but for credibility. Outside Miami, when we’d say we’re from Colombia, we’d often get questions like: ‘Where is Colombia? What can I do if there’s no delivery?,’” Daes says. “After listing, we could say, ‘Look at our stock ticker and reports. We’re for real.’ “
Tecnoglass now employs more than 9,000 people in Barranquilla, making up to 3,000 custom windows daily and even mobilizing robots for inventory control. To keep exports growing, the company just moved its global headquarters to Miami. Daes commutes regularly from Florida to the Barranquilla factories, as he also develops a large Miami area showroom to serve U.S. clients.
Beyond exports, Tecnoglass stands out in Barranquilla for the city monuments that it has donated and maintains. In the past five years, it’s unveiled the colorful Ventana Al Mundo (Window to the World), often shown on TV as the city’s icon and rising some 15 stories; and Ventana de Campeones (Window of Champions), a landmark often called “Shark Fin” that stands about 10-floors high.
Daes calls the landmarks part of his company’s “social respon-
LELIO SOTOMONTE, ATLANTIC QUANTUM INNOVATION
Cruise Capital of the World Global Gateway of the Americas
sibility,” which also features college scholarships for employees and their families, on-site health clinics and sports facilities at factories, wheelchair donations, and strong participation in the Barranquilla Carnival, among other programs.
“What’s most important is people,” says Daes, whose family immigrated to Colombia a century ago seeking opportunity. “Everyone in Tecnoglass has my personal phone number and email.”
ASSETS FOR NEARSHORING: FREE-TRADE ZONES, SEAPORTS, AIRPORTS
Located on the lowlands of the Magdalena River some 15 miles inland from the Caribbean Sea, Barranquilla touts more than proximity to the U.S. to attract nearshoring. Its four free-trade zones also offer tax breaks and other incentives for exporters. Hundreds of companies now operate in the zones, making everything from shampoo to scaffolding, mainly for U.S. buyers. Some, such as outdoor furniture maker Kannoa, have relocated production from distant China.
Costs are part of the lure. At today’s exchange rates, Colombia’s minimum wage runs about $300 per month, slightly less than Mexico’s and about a third of Costa Rica’s, says Manuel Herrera, general manager of the Cayena Free Zone, the busiest zone in Barranquilla. Cayena now hosts tenants that directly employ about 3,000 people, double the number of two years ago, Herrera says.
Since the COVID pandemic, businesses are looking more at “quality-of-life” issues for managers and staff, and Barranquilla is gaining there too, says Marcela Barrios, vice president of the Barranquilla Free Zone, the city’s first zone and the only one with its own seaport. The metro area of some two million residents now offers a miles-long riverwalk, a mangrove eco-park, award-winning restaurants, and more international schools.
“Nearshoring is not just for companies, but for the people who come to do business here,” says Barrios. “We’re a city with Germans, Americans, Middle Easterners, and a multiplicity of cultures and cuisines that make newcomers feel welcome.”
Also vital for nearshoring: strong sea and air links. Barranquilla’s main seaport has been investing and diversifying its services to grow. Since 2021, the Port of Barranquilla has been owned by Miami-based infrastructure fund iSquare Capital, which has helped update operations, trim costs, and reduce accidents, says chief operating officer Aldo Signorelli. The seaport now offers most forms digitally so that users can pay bills online and track cargo status in real time. Last year, the port’s terminal handled some five million tons of freight, from containers to liquids and breakbulk, to place among Colombia’s five busiest. Service to South Florida came from at least two Miami-based lines, Seaboard Marine and King Ocean.
The seaport is expanding into logistics services too. It now offers a large, refrigerated warehouse for perishable and frozen goods, which handles exports of avocados, blueberries, and frozen fruits and vegetables for the U.S. and other nations. Plus, there’s space for more projects on its sprawling acreage, says Rene Puche, the seaport chief of 10 years. He left a career with a Norwegian fertilizer company, which included years in Europe and Africa, to return to his hometown and lead the port, encouraged by the city’s turnaround and its growing collaboration with business. “There’s an honest and open dialogue between the private sector and government on ways to foster long-term growth and sustainable development,” says Puche.
Barranquilla’s airport is also becoming more international in focus. Besides flights to many Colombian cities, it now serves some half-dozen destinations overseas in the U.S., Panama, the Dominican Republic, and the Dutch Caribbean islands. American Airlines flies daily from Miami and Spirit Airlines daily from Fort Lauder-
ABOVE: BARRANQUILLA IS LOCATED ON MAGDALENA RIVER, WITH ACCESS TO THE CARIBBEAN SEA ABOVE RIGHT: MARCELA BARRIOS, VP OF THE BARRANQUILLA FREE ZONE
In the footsteps of author Gabriel García Márquez
Before earning the Nobel Prize for literature in 1982, Colombia’s most celebrated author Gabriel García Márquez lived and wrote in Barranquilla. Born in the nearby province of Magdalena in the small town of Aracataca, he grew up in the port city, and, in the 1950s, worked at its newspaper El Heraldo. He was part of a mid-century cadre of artists, writers, and intellectuals dubbed the Barranquilla Group.
Today, visitors can trace some of his footsteps at a remodeled version of La Cueva bar that the group frequented. The house that hosted the bar has been renovated as a restaurant and cultural center, full of photos of “Gabo” and his peers, plus memorabilia and exhibits.
One notable motif: footprints of an elephant set in concrete and painted gold on the home’s verandah. The story goes that La Cueva’s owner, Eduardo Vila, told patrons he was closing one day, insisting “not even an elephant can make me open.” One patron noticed a circus in town, paid off a circus worker and showed up at the house with an elephant. At the exit, staffers suggest that you make a wish by placing your hands on a block of ice, the very substance “discovered” in the first line of Gabo’s novel “100 Years of Solitude.”
Several civic groups in Barranquilla are now working to develop a “Macondo Route,” named for the town in that epic novel. They envision La Cueva among some 15 stops in the city and 50-plus locations nationwide. In South Florida, a film critic wants to honor Gabo too. Hernando Olivares, who was born in Barranquilla and lived in Miami, is raising funds to make a full-length movie about García Márquez, focusing on his Heraldo newspaper days and tentatively titled “A Coffee for Gabo.”
dale. Colombia’s Avianca also flies from the city to Miami several times a week, says Marcel Di Muzio, the marketing manager with the airport’s private operator.
The airport handled a record 3.1 million passengers in 2022, up from 2.8 million in 2019, as more visitors came to Barranquilla for business travel, Carnival festivities, and increasingly, for medical tourism at the city’s abundant eye-care and dental clinics, says Di Muzio. He sees room for growth not only for passengers and cargo but also for refueling and maintenance. The airport has a lengthy runway – about 10,000 feet long – that already serves as a landing strip for U.S. Air Force jets on maneuvers over Colombia.
“We can land the world’s largest planes like the A380 with no problem, and being at sea level, can become a hub for refueling too,” the tri-lingual Di Muzio told Global Miami Magazine.
TOUTING FUTURE OPPORTUNITIES
To spread the word about its offerings, Barranquilla is turning to conventions, some at its newly built, riverfront Puerta de Oro Convention Center, touted to hold up to 16,000 people cocktail-style.
The city recently beat out larger rivals to host the Latin American convention of the American Association of Port Authorities (AAPA). The Dec. 4-6 event is set draw some 1,000 ports leaders, users, and suppliers from dozens of countries to the center, both for talks and for city tours.
Port leaders see the timing as especially propitious. Seaports near the U.S. now have an edge in the transport of goods to U.S. buyers: Ocean shipping averts the serious congestion and delays facing trucks crossing the U.S.-Mexico land border, making water transit generally faster, less costly, and more environmentally sound, says Rafael J. Diaz-Balart, the Cuba-born, Miami-based execu-
RENE PUCHE, THE SEAPORT CHIEF, SAYS THERE’S SPACE FOR MORE PROJECTS ON THE SEAPORT'S SPRAWLING ACREAGE
A Global Model for “BiodiverCity”
To understand Barranquilla’s rise as a “BiodiverCity,” you need only stroll along the Malecon promenade (above), which spans more than four miles along the Magdalena River. The public park now attracts at least 10 million visitors a year for walks, family outings, meals, or other activities, according to city estimates.
Barranquilla opened the Malecon in 2017 after offering incentives for factories to leave the riverfront. The promenade is central to the city’s “Everyone to the Park” program, which now has more than 90 percent of residents living within an eight-minute walk of a public park. The World Resources Institute’s Ross Center for Cities gave the program its 2021-22 grand prize, selected from 260 submissions by 155 cities in 65 countries. The U.S.-based center praised Barranquilla as Colombia’s first “BiodiverCity” and an urban model.
The “Todos Al Parque” program developed from a business mission to Tampa in western Florida, led by AmCham-Barranquilla. Visitors admired Tampa’s riverwalk and abundant parks, and the mayor’s office asked Tampa for help in how best to create and run parks. It then worked with local neighborhoods to gain input on their needs and engage them to improve the public spaces.
Over the past decade, Barranquilla has revitalized 200-plus parks and opened some 50 more, adding benches, playgrounds, and exercise gear, plus access ramps for seniors and families with small children. Funding came partly from the regional Andean Development Corp., known by its initials in Spanish as CAF, with support from the Inter-American Development Bank, France, and the United Kingdom, among others.
Barranquilla also is part of the “BiodiverCities by 2030 program,” developed by the World Economic Forum, which recommends “nature-based solutions” to boost urban resilience. Solar panels on city government buildings are part of that push, cutting costs for energy and trimming carbon emissions. Says Mayor Jaime Pumarejo: “BiodiverCity can be a motor of development.”
tive who is AAPA’s coordinator for Latin America. “Don’t let this moment pass by to take advantage of nearshoring in Colombia,” Diaz-Balart told a meeting in Barranquilla, a city where he says people “embrace visitors like members of your family.”
Going forward, many see opportunity beyond manufacturing – into cleaner energy. Already, the mayor’s office is installing solar panels on government buildings to expand renewables as part of its “BiodiverCity” push. Barranquilla recently teamed with a Danish company to explore development of a 350 MW offshore wind farm that would be Colombia’s first, tapping the area’s strong winds. Plus, the Atlantico Department has potential to develop natural-gas reserves offshore that could boost exports, studies show.
“We have everything we need to be an energy hub, not only for Colombia but for the world,” says Vicky Osorio, executive director of investment promotion group ProBarranquilla. She envisions the city mobilizing its skills in metal-working to build industrial components for a growing energy sector.
There’s also a push to expand business promotion along Colombia’s entire Caribbean coast, with Barranquilla teaming up with such nearby cities as Cartagena and Santa Marta – much as South Florida’s Miami-Dade, Broward, and Palm Beach counties often collaborate to attract investment.
“If we jointly promote Colombia’s Caribbean region, we can attract more attention and more business for us all,” says the tri-ligual Osorio. She worked in investment promotion for varied entities from New York, Bogotá, and Brazil, but returned to Barranquilla two years ago to help her now transforming hometown.
Key to the future, leaders say, will be keeping up both the strong union between business and government and the long-term vision sparked by Char and his peers. “Right now, we’re all aligned and working together for the city to progress,” says Osorio, proud of the changes made since the 2000s. “What’s important is continuity of the private-public partnership for decades to come.” l
RAFAEL J. DIAZ-BALART, AAPA COORDINATOR FOR LATIN AMERICA
• Multi-Billion Dollar Hi-Tech Hub
• No Slots/Curfews/Delays
• Top Perishable Products Hub
• Top U.S. International Freight Hub
• Multi-Billion Dollar Pharma Hub
• Top Latin American/Caribbean Hub
• High Ranking Global Freight Hub
• Major North American e-Commerce Hub
Images of Barranquilla
When Miami-based entrepreneur Luis Blasini was looking for a place to manufacture outdoor furniture in the early 2000s, the choice was clear: Guangzhou, China, where a cluster of companies had been making furniture for decades, employ ees knew the craft well, and supplies were abundant.
His venture, Kannoa, began contracting Chinese factories to make chairs, tables, and other items for hotels, country clubs, apartment buildings, and diverse spaces. Over time, Kannoa began offering more customized orders, and Blasini needed a space to produce smaller batches on-demand. In 2012, he opened his own factory in that same cluster.
But costs in China kept rising, and shipping across the Pacific meant four to six weeks at sea to deliver his custom orders. So, Blasini started looking closer to home for his small-batch, custom production. Central America and the Dominican Republic offered opportunity, but he worried what might happen if “we stepped on someone’s foot in a small country,” led by a relatively small group of people. So, he looked a bit further south to Colombia, home to some 52 million people and next to Blasini’s homeland of Venezuela.
“The hunt for nearshore manufacturing began in 2014. We saw lead times from Chi na were long,” Blasini says. “We were looking for a country with stability, and Colombia provides strong judicial security.”
Blasini knew he wanted to produce in a free-trade zone, which could provide tax breaks and other incentives for exporters. Colombia offered some 120 options. He visited more than two dozen free zones in varied cities, including Bogotá, Medellín, Cali, and Pereira, and opted for Barranquilla because of its coastal location, with easy access to a port with direct shipping service to Florida.
“In Colombia, with all the mountains, it’s hard to move goods around the country,” says Blasini. From inland zones, “I could pay as much in freight for the goods to reach the coast as I do to ship to Miami.”
By 2019, Kannoa had started production in Barranquilla. Soon after, the pandemic hit, disrupting global supply chains. Blasini could no longer visit his China operations. As factories and seaports strained, freight costs from Asia skyrocketed too, rising from about $2,000 per container to as much as $18,000 – sometimes “costing more for freight from China than the value of what was inside,” he says.
The New Offshoring
HOW FURNITURE-MAKER KANNOA MOVED PRODUCTION FROM CHINA TO BARRANQUILLA
Blasini revved up operations in Colombia, not only for custom orders but also for standard products. Shifting production wasn’t easy, he concedes. He didn’t realize electricity costs in Colombia were significantly higher than China. He couldn’t buy all the inputs required from domestic manufacturers, as in China, so he had to import some basics, including aluminum. In China, workers are often paid by the piece, so they learn to produce quickly and put in long hours to earn more. In Colombia, work tends to be hourly, and employees are less familiar with furniture-making, so labor productivity has been lower. Plus, stricter labor and environmental norms made compliance more expensive.
While production costs are higher in
Colombia than China, however, some offsets help keep operations competitive, says Blasini. Quicker delivery times mean that Kannoa need not keep as much inventory in Miami, saving lots on storage. Freight is cheaper – usually $2,000 to $3,000 per container for direct shipments that arrive in as little as three days. And it’s easier to manage near-shore manufacturing, trimming both spending and stress.
“A two-and-a-half hour flight from Miami is so simple. I fly out at about 11 in the morning, and I’m in the factory at 2:30 in the afternoon. Before, to China, it took me a day and a half going and a day and a half coming back. You get destroyed by the time change,” says Blasini. “And when I sat with an attorney in China, I understood
A two-and-a-half hour flight from Miami is so simple. I fly out at about 11 in the morning, and I’m in the factory at 2:30 in the afternoon. Before, to China,
it took me a day and a half going and a day and a half coming back...
OPPOSITE: LUIS BLASINI, FOUNDER OF KANNOA IN THE BARRANQUILLA FACTORY
ABOVE: KANNOA NOW EMPLOYS ABOUT 130 PEOPLE IN COLOMBIA, MANY IN LABOR-INTENSIVE WORK MAKING FURNITURE FOR HOTELS, RESTAURANTS, AND OTHER SPACES.
maybe three words. In Colombia, I speak the same language, either Spanish or English. I understand everything. It’s definitely a much nicer experience.”
Kannoa now employs about 130 people in Colombia and some 40 more in Miami. About 90 percent of sales are destined for the U.S. and the rest largely for Latin America and the Caribbean.
To cut costs in Colombia, Kannoa is adding welding machinery and automating some production processes. It plans to add solar panels on its factory later to reduce electricity costs. Longer-term, it hopes to develop a furniture industry cluster in Barranquilla, as in China, that could offer inputs and other services to those in the cluster, while nurturing generations of workers attuned to industry needs.
“I could see an upholstery factory next to a lamp factory next to an outdoor furniture maker, so we can offer more manufacturing options and services beyond producing for your own brand,” says Blasini.
For fellow manufacturers interested in Colombia, Blasini suggests contacting local
business and investment promotion groups, especially ProColombia, ProBarranquilla, the U.S. Embassy’s commercial service in Bogotá, and AmCham-Barranquilla, where leaders are eager to help foreign companies set up in the country and create needed jobs.
“We’re in Barranquilla because of ProBarranquilla, and we’re in Colombia because of ProColombia,” says Blasini. “When we visited other countries, none had the infrastructure and services of ProColombia. We had lunches and dinners with ProColombia’s president. ProColombia operates more like a private business than a government agency. They do amazing work.”
Blasini says the local business groups can help newcomers vet potential partners, make contacts, and develop links. “Business in Colombia is very personal. You go out to lunch and dinner. You need to build relationships. It’s not the same to cold-call and say, 'I’m Juan Perez from a U.S. company,' as to have AmCham or the Embassy take you by the hand. They act as a filter and add weight to what you’re doing.” l
Going Bilingual
BETTING ON ENGLISH FOR ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT
Lelio Sotomonte remembers being called crazy when he and his partners set out to sell English-language services to U.S. customers from their call center in Barranquilla in 2009. Back then, few young people in the city spoke English well. The quality of English education in local public schools was weak.
Today, many call Sotomonte a pioneer. Thanks to closer collaboration between business, government, academia, and civic groups, Barranquilla now boasts the strongest English skills program in Colombia, helping its call-center industry soar to some 8,000 jobs, many reliant on English.
The company that Sotomonte leads, Atlantic Quantum Innovation, now employs roughly 3,500 people, about four times the number of a decade ago, and it’s building a new center set to employ some 1,000 more. Already, about half of Atlantic’s employees are bilingual, mainly in Spanish and English, serving U.S. customers in such diverse fields as healthcare and telecom. Bilingual employees earn more and get hired for jobs faster than applicants who speak just one language, says Atlantic’s international business development manager Andrea Bruges, who speaks Spanish, German, French, and English.
“The industry is following what we’re doing here, and other cities are considering support for bilingual programs to foster the economy and jobs,” says Bruges, 32, who moved from Colombia’s capital of Bogotá for university studies in Barranquilla and stayed because of call center opportunities.
Prompting the expanded use of English is support from the city government. With advocacy for English from the AmCham-Barranquilla and a call center association, Sotomonte says the mayor’s office mobilized unprecedented resources from Colombia’s SENA training institute. The mayor’s team also spurred donations from companies and business groups, and customized the curriculum in public schools, offering English-language classes for middle school students. SENA now offers classes in Barranquilla to bring students to the upper-intermediate B2 level required by call centers, providing a steady stream of job applicants.
English-language skills benefit more than call centers, of course. “The creation of this cluster,” says Sotomonte, “built an ecosystem that lets us manage not just customer care, but also computer technical support, healthcare, energy, and logistics to expand our portfolio.” Manufacturers selling to the U.S. market, hotels welcoming overseas visitors, transport firms serving Florida, and other international businesses all gain from staff versed in English, says Vicky Ibañez, executive director of AmCham-Barranquilla since its founding in 1998. She’s grown her group to become the second-largest of Colombia’s five AmCham chapters and the biggest for its city size, now counting nearly 200 affiliates.
Ibañez knows the importance of English from the many business missions she has organized to cities in Florida, including Tampa, Jacksonville, and Tallahassee. A mission to Miami in August featured 14 Barranquilla companies that held 180-plus meetings with potential partners for import, export, and two-way investment. “You can’t go to the U.S. for business and not know English,” Ibañez says. “That’s why we back this bilingual education project.” l
As one of the top ports in the world and located at the confluence of South Florida’s Atlantic shipping lanes, airways, railways and highways, we are your unrivaled connection to global markets.
Moving to Miami
WHY BARRANQUILLA COMPANIES ARE INVESTING IN SOUTH FLORIDA
For business between Barranquilla and the U.S., Florida shines as the No. 1 gateway. That’s true for Colombian producers sending goods north. It’s also the case for larger companies from Barranquilla that are increasingly setting up operations in Greater Miami to reach U.S. and global clients more easily.
Once Colombian exporters have a large enough client base in the U.S., they often opt to open a sales or marketing office – or even a specialty factory – inside the U.S. itself to be closer to North American customers. They also find it’s sometimes simpler to run marketing for the Americas from Miami, given the area’s role as a hub for business throughout Latin America.
Consider the examples of Finotex, a maker of labels for clothing, and Procaps Group, a producer of pharmaceuticals. Both were started by immigrant families in Barranquilla, expanded through exports, and today, have significant operations in South Florida.
You may be wearing Finotex products right now. The company makes labels for Calvin Klein, Dickies, Hanes, Fruit of the Loom, and other major brands, says general manager Fabian Duque.
Founded in Barranquilla in 1984, it opened a small factory in Miami in 1989, mobilizing South Florida’s superior international logistics to supply apparel producers in Central America and the Andean Pact nations of South America. Back then, Colombia’s international logistics were not well developed, Duque says.
Over time, Finotex also launched factories throughout the Caribbean Basin to be close to the apparel plants using its labels there. And as U.S. brands expanded production in China and Mexico, Finotex set up factories there too. Today, the family-owned business employs about 1,000 people worldwide, operating 10 plants globally, making printed and woven labels, hangtags, and heat transfers. In Miami, about 25 people handle sales and marketing for the U.S. and Caribbean Basin markets and some international logistics.
“It’s a big competitive advantage to have a commercial office
in Miami to reach the major brands,” says Duque. “Many people feel more protected when a U.S. office operating under U.S. law handles their brand.”
Procaps, meanwhile, is so active in North America that it’s set up two factories in South Florida to produce pharmaceuticals and supplements. An immigrant family from Poland started the venture in Barranquilla nearly 50 years ago, opening leather tanneries that spun off such byproducts as gelatin for medicine capsules.
Today, Procaps has offices in 13 countries, with factories in Colombia, El Salvador, Brazil, and the U.S. Its stock trades on the NASDAQ exchange, and net revenue reached $410 million in 2022. Keen on innovation, the company holds 43 patents, with another 48 pending, says attorney Marcela Carvajalino, vice president of corporate affairs.
In 2021, Procaps bought an 86,000-square-foot factory in West Palm Beach to make soft-gel pharmaceuticals and is now developing a factory in Broward County to make its Funtrition-brand gummies. While the company holds U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approval since 2009 for its Colombian factories to export prescription products to the U.S., demand is so strong for some items that it makes sense to make them in Florida both for U.S. sale and export elsewhere, says Carvajalino.
“U.S. production opens opportunities in other regions with which the U.S. has free-trade accords or other protocols for sale of pharmaceuticals and nutritional supplements,” including Mexico, says Carvajalino. “Our vision is global.” l
TOP: THE PROCAPS GROUP OPENED SOFGEN IN SOUTH FLORIDA
ABOVE: FABIAN DUQUE, GENERAL MANAGER OF FINOTEX
dircomercial@ips-reencontrarse.com
Celebrate On
BARRANQUILLA’S CARNIVAL BRINGS GROWING ECONOMIC BENEFITS
$350 million-plus from visitor outlays, a new record this past year. That doesn’t count the money that locals spend on Carnival – to make costumes, decorate floats, attend events, and buy food and drink. And it omits the value of buzz generated in media, both traditional and social, prepared by 600-plus journalists from outlets such as CNN en Español and Celebra Peru, and from folks posting 700,000 times on Facebook alone.
J
oyous dancing to cumbia music. Troupes parading with animal masks. Floats brimming with fresh flowers. A Carnival Queen wearing an elegant gown. Indigenous groups playing wooden flutes.
Barranquilla’s pre-Lenten Carnival shines as Colombia’s largest cultural extravaganza mixing European, African, and native American cultures. It’s also an important economic driver for the city, attracting visitors from around the globe both for the event itself and year-round through the publicity it brings.
Now, leaders aim to boost that economic impact through increased marketing, greater cultural exchanges with other Colombian cities and, later, more consistent presentations of Colombia’s diverse cultural offerings overseas.
Already, promotions feature a world-class Carnival Museum launched in Barranquilla in 2021. The museum offers videos, photos, costumes, and other exhibits that trace the history of Carnival globally and dive deep into Barranquilla’s version, which some rank among the world’s largest, after Rio de Janeiro’s.
Sandra Gomez, a former journalist, heads up the public-private partnership Carnival SA that organizes the annual event. She describes the February 2023 Carnival as its most attended yet, drawing nearly 670,000 visitors from across Colombia and from such overseas nations as the United States, Spain, Germany, Canada, and Japan. Those visitors filled almost all of the city’s roughly 8,600 hotel rooms during its peak weekend and an average 83 percent of those rooms on its four main days. In all, out-of-town Colombians spent roughly $500 each and overseas guests some $700 each during the fete – or
“Carnival is the biggest enterprise in Baranquilla,” says Gomez. “It generates 30,000 direct and indirect jobs – in creative industries for dancers, musicians, artisans, designers, and make-up artists, and for many others [such as] security staff, food vendors, drivers, and hotel workers. We prepare for it all year-round.”
Key to the Carnival’s success is diversity, especially in music. “You identify Rio Carnival with samba, Trinidad & Tobago’s with calypso, and New Orleans’ Mardi Gras with jazz. But here, we have many different rhythms. One group may be dancing cumbia, another garabato, another mapale and another son de negro. We have many cultures with different folkloric traditions, and we all share together,” says Gomez.
Barranquilla’s modern Carnival has roots dating back more than a century. Records show the first Carnival King crowned in 1888, the first Battle of Flowers held in 1903, and first Carnival Queen named in 1918. Organizers added the Grand Parade and orchestra competitions in the 1960s, while the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) designated the celebration among the world’s masterpieces of intangible cultural heritage in 2003.
Gomez now seeks to leverage that heritage with more regular cultural exchanges within Colombia. Later, she envisions tours worldwide with folkloric artists from across Colombia, helping promote the country’s cultural offerings and attract more travelers.
“Carnival is one of the happiest moments in the city. We welcome guests like family,” says Gomez. “Everybody becomes an ambassador for Carnival.” l
SANDRA GOMEZ OF CARNIVAL SA, AT THE CARNIVAL MUSEUM
Snapshots
SO MANY SOUTH FLORIDA LINKS... IT’S “QUILLAMI”
Barranquilla and South Florida are so intertwined that at least four international stars from the Colombian city live or have lived in Greater Miami. Indeed, there’s a slang word that unites the two places: Quillami. It can refer to everything from high-rises in ‘Quilla that look like Miami towers to those ‘Quilleros who aspire to live as if they were in Miami, acting a bit showy at times. In Greater Miami’s Kendall area, there’s even a Quillami Fast Food restaurant offering typical Barranquilla fare. Here’s a look at four renowned Barranquilleros linked to Miami:
SHAKIRA: SINGER, SONGWRITER, ACTRESS, AND DANCER Superstar Shakira now lives in Miami Beach with her children. She was born and raised in Barranquilla and made her recording debut with Sony Music Colombia at age 13. Her “Hips Don’t Lie” dancing style builds on her dad’s Lebanese roots. Billboard's magazine says that with 95 million-plus records sold, Shakira is the top-selling Latina singer of all time. Her Pies Descalzos (Barefoot) Foundation has built schools in Colombia, including sites in Barranquilla.
SOFIA VERGARA: MODEL, ACTRESS, AND ENTREPRENEUR Vergara came to Miami with her son at age 22 to work for Univision TV on travel shows. She’s best known in the U.S. for her role as Gloria on the TV series "Modern Family" and as a judge since 2020 on "America’s Got Talent," ranking her among the highest-paid women on TV. Born and raised in Baranquilla, she studied dentistry there. Her businesses include clothing, fragrances, jewelry, home décor, and new beauty brand Toty, her childhood nickname.
SILVIA TCHERASSI: FASHION DESIGNER Tcherassi says her global brand offering “Effortless Elegance” was born in her hometown of Barranquilla but blossomed in Miami, her longtime residence. She runs more than a dozen boutiques in the Americas and Europe, sells her clothes in such top stores as Neiman Marcus and Harrods, and recently expanded into luxury hotels, with a namesake property in Colombia’s Cartagena. She studied interior design in Barranquilla and fashion at Parsons School in New York.
EDGAR RENTERIA: SHORT-STOP IN MAJOR LEAGUE BASEBALL Renteria helped the Florida Marlins win the 1997 World Series. He also earned the 2010 World Series’ Most Valuable Player award with the San Francisco Giants. Renteria founded the Colombian Professional Baseball League, which plays in Barranquilla in a stadium named in his honor. Now retired from MLB, “Barranquilla Baby” mostly lives in his hometown, enjoying its recent progress, from its improved roads to eco-parks. He told Global Miami Magazine from the Palo de Mango restaurant: “With these changes, we’re opening to the world.” l
Over 40 Years of Service!
We are a people company in the shipping business. We protect and care for our employees so that they care for and protect our customers. When you move your cargo with us you will receive boutique and personalized service backed by more than four decades of expertise in the logistics and maritime transportation industry.
There is no load too big or too small that we do not move. Whether it is refrigerated or dry cargo, Full Container Load (FCL) or Less than Container Load (LCL), personal items, heavy machinery, project cargo, intermodal services, or your holiday gifts for your family this year, we move it all!
We have more than forty years of experience serving Central and South America, the Caribbean, and the United States with convenient weekly fixed-day sailing schedules, modern and oversized consolidation facilities in South Florida and a full book of documentation and processing services all in one place and at your disposal.