Colombia courts Korean investors to rebuild economy

By Park Hyong-ki

Trade Minister Maria Claudia Lacouture

Colombia had suffered heavy damage to its infrastructure due to more than five decades of civil war.

As the country is putting the past behind it with the end of the conflict, Colombia is looking to attract investors from Korea, its free trade partner, to help it rebuild its infrastructure ranging from airports and roads to ports and schools.

Korean construction companies such as SK Engineering & Construction (E&C), Hyundai E&C and Samsung Construction & Trading have shown interest in participating in Colombia’s infrastructure development.

SK E&C looks most interested, according to Colombia’s Ministry of Commerce, Industry and Tourism. SK Group invested in Colombia’s energy sector in 2008.

“SK, Hyundai and Samsung can participate in infrastructure development via bids and public-private partnerships,” Colombia’s Trade Minister Maria Claudia Lacouture said in an interview at the Colombian Embassy in Seoul.

“The country plans to renovate 58 airports. We also hope not only big companies but also small businesses will come to help the country develop its rural land that had been underdeveloped due to the conflict.”

Colombia is looking to rebuild its infrastructure in 200 small cities and rural areas where it can build schools and grow agriculture products, in addition to building roads and airports, the trade minister noted.

She said the agriculture sector is where Colombia and Korea can further expand their economic relations and help resolve global food shortages.

“This is the area where we can increase cooperation in growing fruit, and raising cattle and fish, and extracting palm oil for domestic consumption and export,” she said.

As it has massive underdeveloped and underused land because of the conflict, Colombia has the potential to become one of seven “food-providing” economies, she added, citing data from the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations.

“Our top priority through the development is job creation, in line with the country’s aim to reduce poverty, unemployment, ease inflation and empower the middle class.”

The country seeks to generate 45 percent of its growth from the middle class by 2025.

“The development projects would obviously have to help create jobs for our partners like Korea as well. Colombia stands by globalization via free trade, transfer of technology, innovation and exchange of human resources,” she said.

The trade minister said Colombia can offer Korea an alternative strategic location to Mexico, which faces a possible termination of the North American Free Trade Agreement amid the United States’ protectionism.

“Colombia is strategically located. From Colombia, exports to other Latin American countries would be easier and take a shorter period of time,” she said.

The minister also noted the International Monetary Fund’s data, saying that Colombia is one of the few countries that can achieve over 2 percent growth annually, compared to 1 percent for others in the region.

With a population of about 48 million Colombians, the country is the fourth-largest economy in Latin America.

The free trade agreement (FTA) between Colombia and Korea took effect in July 2016.

Since the FTA, Colombia saw its exports grow more than 70 percent to Korea last year, from 2015, and about 90 percent from January to February this year, from a year earlier. Colombian exports to Korea are mainly coal, ores and coffee beans.

Lacouture has been the trade minister since May, 2016.