spacer Latest News spacer spacer

Colombia Marks 200 Years of Independence!

July 20th marked the 200th anniversary of Colombia’s independence – and Manhattan’s famous skyline paid tribute to the bicentennial as the Empire State Building was lit in the colors of the Colombian flag.

Celebrations attracting tens of thousands of Colombian-Americans and their friends were held over the past week in cities and towns across America, including: Boston, Houston, Lowell (MA), Miami, New York, San Francisco, and Washington, DC, among others.

 

 

Colombia in Focus

  

Colombia’s Ambassador and Mayor Milinazzo at Lowell’s Colombian Independence Day Celebration
Friday, 23 July 2010

Embassy of Colombia. Washington DC. As Colombia commemorated the 200th anniversary of its... 
Read More »

Complete success at the celebration of the Bicentennial of Colombia’s Independence
Wednesday, 21 July 2010

Over nine hundred guests celebrated the Bicentennial of Colombia’s Independence, at the... 
Read More »

Colombia's Bicentennial Independence Day
Monday, 19 July 2010

Hillary Rodham Clinton Secretary of State Washington, DC July 19, 2010 On behalf of President Obama... 
Read More »

Press Conference at the Emergency Committee for American Trade
Thursday, 15 July 2010

On Wednesday, July 14th, The Emergency Committee for American Trade held a press conference upon... 
Read More »

Colombia in the News / July 19th, 2010

 

 

By Mac Margolis. In a time of emerging-market juggernauts, Colombia gets little notice. Its $244 billion economy is only the fifth-largest in Latin America, a trifle next to Brazil, the $2 trillion regional powerhouse. Yet against all odds Colombia has become the country to watch in the hemisphere. In the past eight years the nation of 45 million has gone from a crime- and drug-addled candidate for failed state to a prospering dynamo. The once sluggish economy is on a roll. Oil and gas production are surging, and Colombia’s MSCI index jumped 15 percent between January and June, more than any other stock market this year.
This is more than a bull run. Since 2002, foreign direct investment has jumped fivefold (from $2 billion to $10 billion), while GDP per capita has doubled, to $5,700. The society that once was plagued by car bombs, brain drain, and capital flight is now debating how to avoid “Dutch disease,” the syndrome of too much foreign cash rolling in. Stable, booming, and democratic, Colombia has increasingly become “a bright star in the Latin American constellation,” as emerging-market analyst Walter Molano of BCP Securities calls it. Michael Geoghegan, CEO of HSBC, recently picked Colombia as a leader of a nascent block of midsize powers, the CIVETS (after the smallish, tree-dwelling cat), which stands for Colombia, Indonesia, Vietnam, Egypt, Turkey, and South Africa. “These are the new BRICs,” he said. (...)
 Read more 

 

 

 

If Denver's Biennial of the Americas draws attention to the value of trade in the Western Hemisphere, it also illustrates hard truths about the cost of sitting on the sidelines.
For four years, Congress has stalled a U.S-Colombia Free Trade agreement that would level the playing field for U.S. exports. Colorado's agricultural sector is paying the price.
"Nearly 100 percent of Colombian imports enter the U.S. duty-free. Zero percent of the United States' exports enter the Colombian market duty-free," said William Brownfield, the U.S. ambassador to Colombia, at a recent Biennial luncheon in Denver.
Free-trade agreements produce trade and commerce, which in turn create more investment and jobs, Brownfield said.
The Colombia FTA, signed in 2006, would immediately allow 80 percent of U.S. exports into Colombia duty-free. Although amended in 2007 to address human rights and labor concerns, Congress voted in 2008 to shelve the agreement indefinitely. (...) Read more 

 

 

 

 

 

Embassy of Colombia

2118 Leroy Place, NW
Washington, DC 20008

Email

embassyofcolombia@colombiaemb.org

Phone:

(202)-387-8338

Fax:

(202)-232-8643

 

Web Editor:

Viviana Robles
vr@colombiaemb.org