By Caribbean News Global 
LONDON England – British minister for international trade Ranil Jayawardena met with minister José Manuel Restrepo, minister of commerce, tourism, and industry in Colombia, for the first UK-Colombia trade dialogue in a time of unprecedented challenges.
The ministers agreed to work together “to make sure that free and fair trade between the two sovereign nations secures a green and resilient recovery and the future prosperity and opportunity all our people deserve.”
The importance of increasing trade and investment flows through collaboration in modernising markets, exchanging regulatory and technical expertise, and encouraging businesses to seek opportunities to enhance and diversify the goods and services.
The progress made so far, including signing the United Kingdom-Andean Free Trade Agreement, which will give British and Colombian businesses the ability to trade and grow in liberalised and equitable markets and to make sure that the benefits of this agreement help to open opportunities for producers, consumers, and businesses – large and small.
Experts will continue to work together to increase bilateral trade and investment, at pace, in the sectors that are the key to a sustainable and prosperous future:
- Clean Energy as a means of securing a sustainable and climate friendly-recovery. Building on our bilateral Partnership for Sustainable Growth signed by president Duque in London one year ago, and attracting investors in both markets, the United Kingdom and Colombia are committed to a greener, cleaner approach to the global recovery from the COVID crisis.
- Agri-foods: improve sustainability, access, productivity, and traceability to increase trade and consumer choice and reward good stewardship and quality production in this critically important sector for the Colombian economy.
- Technology and Creative Industries, to help our people access the most innovative goods and services, leveraging the talent and creativity of both countries, and benefit from the dynamism of our creative economies.
- Financial services: we want to use the latest technologies and products to support SMEs, drive innovation through open banking, strengthen capital markets, and increase the use of green finance to support a sustainable and dynamic future economy.
- Life sciences: collaborating on regulation and innovative health technology to increase collaboration amongst businesses in both countries to get the best health care outcomes for our people.
- Infrastructure: we want to make both countries more attractive to investors through transparent, well-structured, and sustainable infrastructure projects, and we want to increase the active participation of our companies in one another’s infrastructure markets.
Ministers Jayawardena and Manuel Restrepo acknowledged the already energetic collaboration between ministries, trade and investment promotion agencies, embassies, and bilateral chambers of commerce that have ensured a unique ecosystem focused on increasing trade and investment between both countries, with successful activities such as the Colombia Investment Roadshow.
This ecosystem provides a very solid footing to implement the agreements agreed to in particular: “The signing of a memorandum of understanding between NICE and IETS – to drive more effective incorporation of new technologies into health systems. This collaboration will increase trade flows between our two countries, as well as attracting more British investment into Colombia. We hope that this model of collaboration can be mirrored in other key sectors as we move forward together towards a commercial future based on technology, innovation, and trade; and finally, to work together on the global stage to make the case for free trade and make sure that its benefits continue to be shared widely.”
Ministers Jayawardena and Manuel Restrepo “committed to cooperate in helping make global trade institutions fit for 21st Century challenges, charting a course for a sustainable, fair, and prosperous future for all our people.”
