INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS
·
The Vice President and Chancellor, Marta LucÃa RamÃrez, began her agenda
in Berlin with her participation on April 4 at the World Diaspora Summit (The
Global Diaspora Summit), a space created by the International Organization for Migration
and the Government of Ireland, which
proposes a vision of progress to allow countries to generate solid links with
their nationals abroad, as well as good practices in care to migrants.
·
The
Vice President and Chancellor, during her speech at the Summit, shared
Colombia's experience, progress, achievements and challenges in dealing with Venezuelan migration and insisted on
the need to deepen international cooperation to deploy more efficient actions,
under the principles of co-responsibility and humanity.
·
During
her working visit to Ireland, the Colombian Vice President and Foreign
Minister met with President Michael D. Higgins, with whom she
discussed the bonds of friendship that have been strengthened between the two
countries, cooperation, Peace with Legality, the promotion of business links
and the importance of gender equality and the empowerment of women in society.
·
The
President of the Republic, Iván Duque,
spoke on April 2 with the President of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelenski,
to whom he expressed the solidarity of the Colombian people with the European nation, in the face of the war
they are suffering, and praised their courage.
·
In
a telephone conversation of more than 15
minutes with President Zelenski,
the Head of State said that the aim
is "to
mobilize more Latin American countries, to express our support and to mobilize
more humanitarian aid."
·
For
his part, the President of Ukraine, Volodymyr
Zelensky, stated on his Twitter account via this link https://bit.ly/35FjndJ on Saturday,2nd
April 2022: “
I'm happy to contact @IvanDuque. I
am grateful to Colombia for its humanitarian assistance and consolidation of
South American countries in support of Ukraine. We agreed to start joint economic
and defensive projects after the war.”
·
The
Vice President and Chancellor, Marta
LucÃa RamÃrez, developed a fruitful work agenda in Istanbul and Ankara,
accompanied by the Embassy of Colombia
in Turkey. During her visit, between
April 1 and 2, the senior official held a meeting with representatives of
the Colombian community residing in
Istanbul and the Consul in that
city.
·
Likewise,
he met in Ankara with the Vice President
of Turkey, Fuat Oktay, and the Foreign
Minister of that country, Mevlüt
Çavuşoğluy; with the purpose of enhancing cooperation in tourism,
entrepreneurship, agriculture, science, health, high technology, innovation,
achieving investments in the steel and automotive sectors and finding new
possibilities for support from the Turkish
Cooperation and Coordination Agency -TIKA - for education and gender equity
in Colombia.
·
Likewise,
as part of her visit to Turkey to deepen trade relations, expand the coffee culture and continue to conquer more markets in
the world, the Vice President and
Chancellor opened the first Juan Valdez Café store in Istanbul.
-It is projected to have 50 more
stores of this franchise in the next 4
years in Turkey. In the year 2022,
the first 12 will be ready. Colombia
has 580,000 coffee farms and 170,000 are owned by women, for this
reason, we are going to continue promoting the sector.
·
For
her part, on March 30, the Vice
President and Chancellor, Marta LucÃa
RamÃrez, celebrated the appointment
of Pablo de Greiff as an independent expert of the United Nations Commission of Inquiry for
Ukraine. He stated that it is gratifying to see Colombians stand out internationally for their talent, ability and
experience. His work will be key in terms of human rights.
ENVIRONMENT AND
SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT
·
The
Minister of Mines and Energy of Colombia, Diego Mesa, concluded his
participation on March 30, in the Berlin Energy Transition Dialogue 2022
(BETD), the most important energy
event in Europe with the assistance of international leaders specialized in
the field.
·
During
the event, Minister Mesa,
accompanied by the Embassy of Colombia
in Germany, managed to guarantee the investment of more than US$700 million that BayWa re will make
in solar energy projects in Colombia.
Similarly, the official also met with
Joachim Goldbeck, the president of the German company Goldbeck Solar, which is interested in Colombia in the future with green hydrogen projects.
·
The
great advances in energy transition, the start of hydrogen projects and the
great potential we have for its production, position Colombia 🇨🇴 as a great producer and exporter of this energy worldwide.
·
It
is worth remembering that in September of last year the Government presented the zero and low emission hydrogen roadmap and
only 6 months later it put into
operation the first green hydrogen pilot projects in the country carried out by
Ecopetrol and Promigas.
·
Colombia
closes productive participation in BETD22,
sharing with world leaders, representatives of the German government and
European companies our commitment to become a hydrogen production and export power and add allies to the energy
transition.
ECONOMIC REACTIVATION
·
The
National Administrative Department of
Statistics (DANE) revealed on March 31 that unemployment in Colombia continues to decline. For February 2022,
the unemployment rate stood at 12.9%, compared to 15.5% in the same month of 2021;
this means that it fell by 2.6%.
-We have recovered 1.5 million
jobs, of which 66% corresponded
to women. It is with facts that we continue, from the National Government, to advance with the revitalization of the labor market.
·
On
March 31, President Iván Duque, accompanied by the Minister of Commerce, Industry and Tourism
(CIT), MarÃa Ximena Lombana; installed in Cali (Valle del Cauca) the
90th Macro-Round, a meeting that represents an opportunity for more than 3,000 national and foreign businessmen to exchange experiences and businesses.
·
Environmental Finance Magazine, specializing in sustainable finance, awarded Colombia
the "Green Bond of the year
2022" award in the "Sovereign"
category for the placement of the first green TES for $1.5 billion that we made in 2021. This award has been obtained also in the past by France, Germany, Chile, among others.
It is with facts that Colombia is fulfilling its commitments on environmental
matters and promoting sustainable growth.
·
By
completing the first phase of the negotiations of the Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement between the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Colombia, the two countries welcomed
the substantial completion of phase one of
the negotiations towards the Comprehensive
Economic Partnership Agreement between the two parts. Colombia's exports to this market reached a total of US$162
million in 2021.
·
Amazon Web Services, CISCO, IBM,
Microsoft and Oracle came together to train and certify 10,000 Colombians in
programming for free. The alliance is generated within the framework of ICT Mission 2022, the strategy of the
Government of President Iván Duque,
which seeks to train more than 60,000
people during 2022 and benefit a total of 100,000 young people and adults in the country.
PEACE WITH LEGALITY
·
42 months after the implementation of the Government's Peace with Legality, $12.48 billion have been allocated for
the execution of 1,440 projects in
the 170 municipalities most affected
by violence and poverty where Development
Programs with a Territorial Approach
is developed ( PDET).
·
“The National Government has
provided legal and political guarantees, care for victims, support for the
reintegration of ex-combatants, promotion of the PDET and support for the 100,000
families linked to the process of crop substitution, among other fronts,
all with an emphasis on the gender and ethnic approach,” pointed out the Presidential Council for Stabilization and
Consolidation.
·
In
terms of victims, at the national level, during the Government, 2,707,105 humanitarian assistances have
been delivered to households victims of forced displacement included in the Single Registry of Victims, with an
investment of close to $1.7 billion.
·
Likewise,
it has acted with serious planning, political commitment and the search for
resources to lay the foundations for Peace with Legality in the coming years.
·
Faced
with the reincorporation process, 12,826
ex-combatants advance in their transition towards legality and, as of February 28, 2022, a total of 4,063 productive projects have been
approved between groups and individuals that link 8,556 reincorporated, for a value of $83,074 million, of which $68,435
million correspond to contributions from the Government.
·
The
Director of the Agency for Reincorporation and Normalization (ARN) of the
Government of Colombia, Andres Stapper, visited the United Kingdom to share
the progress of the reincorporation process, focusing on the economic
sustainability processes promoted in Colombia, within the framework of the
Policy of Peace with Legality.
·
The
visit had a rich political and commercial agenda, in which the Director had the
opportunity to meet with members of the British
government, NGOs, think tanks, academia, and journalists
to socialize the achievements that have guaranteed the transition to legality
of around 13,000 people, and also
strengthen the support of international actors for the process.
·
The
coffee and cocoa production projects,
led by women's organizations,
affected communities and people in the process of reincorporation, participated
between March 28 and April 4 in the
London Coffee Festival, the largest coffee event in the world.
·
For
more than a year, the British Embassy in
Colombia, together with the Embassy
of Colombia to the United Kingdom, has been working to materialize the
first visit of the Agency for
Reintegration and Normalization (ARN) to Great Britain and Northern
Ireland.
For
more information, contact César Castro:
cesar.castro@cancilleria.gov.co
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