Colombia Signed Deal With Venezuela To Improve Trade

As per the latest news, Colombia and Venezuela entered into an agreement to restore trade between these two nations and lift import duties on dozens of manufactured goods during a ceremony on a border bridge. The agreement is signed by both Colombia’s President Gustavo Petro and Venezuela’s President Nicolas Maduro.

Maduro stated at the event, “The arrangement provides details on everything related to tariffs, good trade, as well as establishes the groundworks for a new dynamic, for the development of trade between Colombia and Venezuela.”

Diplomatic & trade relations started as course of normalization in September 2022 after Petro was introduced in Bogota last August after pledging during his mission to normalize diplomatic arrangements with the government in Caracas.

Petro stated, “We need to fill these extensions with improved trade. There is lots of work still remaining to execute because it is not a question of whether these extensions will be filled with trade but instead, they are filled with people.”

The Colombian leader stated that the 2200 kilometer (1,367-mile) border between these two nations had long fallen under the control of “ mafia groups, who, submerged in struggle and unlawful economies, made (the border) their domain.”

In January, Petro headed out to Caracas to meet Maduro and discuss conducting trade alongside harmony talks between Petro’s administration and the National Liberation Army (ELN) rebel group.

Venezuela acts as a guarantor of the harmony talks with the ELN and the first round of updated negotiations between Colombia and the rebel group occurred in Caracas last year.

In the present, Venezuela’s National Assembly, which is administered by the ruling Socialist Party, approved the appointment of former general Carlos Eduardo Martinez as the Caribbean nation’s ambassador to Colombia.

Caracas ended relations with Bogota in 2019 after Venezuelan opposition endeavors initiated to send aid trucks from Colombia. Maduro’s government stated that it was a front for an attempted coup.

Additionally, previous legal authorities in Bogota have blamed Maduro of protecting Colombian rebel groups, and criminals, accusations denied by him.

Originally published at https://www.emeriobanque.com.