Duque announces historic figures for new investment from Brazil in Colombia

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – The President of Colombia, Iván Duque, highlighted on Monday (18) in São Paulo the “very active diplomacy” that unites his country with Brazil and anticipated a significant increase in Brazilian investments in Colombia, up to “a historic figure”.

“The relationship between Colombia and Brazil has been a fruitful relationship, one of mutual respect, but above all in recent decades of finding opportunities,” Duque said at an event at the start of a two-day official visit to Brazil.

Read also: Check out our coverage on Colombia

Duque, who is accompanied by a large delegation from the Colombian government and its  business world, is scheduled to meet this Tuesday in Brasilia with President Jair Bolsonaro, with whom he will discuss, among other issues, the crisis in Venezuela.

On the first day of his visit, with a robust economic tone, Duque took the opportunity to highlight the investment opportunities that Colombia offered Brazil and encouraged to increase them in the coming years.

“Our meeting today is to celebrate this relationship and somehow accumulate feelings that will allow us to expand it as never before,” said Duque at the event organized by ProColombia. Among the advantages he offered were tax breaks and a framework of long-term legal stability that allows Colombia to provide a “highly competitive business relationship.”

He stressed “great opportunities” in non-conventional renewable energy sources, infrastructure, technology, and tourism sectors. “From here, we will leave with more than US$1.4 billion in Brazilian investments in Colombia in the next two years,” Duque anticipated at the event. “That will be an unprecedented historical figure,” he added.

Duque’s agenda in São Paulo on Monday includes meetings with representatives of private enterprise in Brazil and with directors of the Getulio Vargas Foundation, one of Brazil’s leading think tanks. He is also scheduled to have lunch with representatives of different sectors of Brazil’s financial world before embarking tonight on his trip to Brasilia for the meeting with Bolsonaro.

Duque and Bolsonaro are expected to address bilateral and regional issues at their meeting, including the crisis in Venezuela, whose president, Nicolás Maduro, is described as a “dictator” by Brazil and Colombia.

Brazilian official sources told Efe that this issue will be at the center of the discussions, especially after the interruption of the dialogue that the Venezuelan opposition and the ruling party were held in Mexico.

Negotiations were canceled after Cape Verde approved the extradition of Alex Saab – allegedly Maduro’s frontman – to the United States, a country which the Venezuelan government accused, together with the opposition and Colombia, of what is considered an “illegal action” and “in violation of international law”.