The Ministry of Commerce, Industry and Tourism of Colombia informed that, this week, the governments of Colombia and Japan advanced into the fifth round of negotiations to reach a free trade agreement.
The delegations, led by Akira Yamada, general manager for Latin America and the Caribbean of the Japanese Foreign Ministry, and Javier Gamboa Benavides, head negotiator of the South American country, met from Monday to Friday in Tokyo.
The last round of negotiations was held in Bogota, last February. In it, the technical teams advanced on: the rules of origin, government procurement, market access for agricultural and industrial goods, improvement of the business environment, technical barriers to trade, sanitary and phytosanitary measures, customs procedures, legal and institutional issues, e-commerce, sustainable trade and development, and cooperation.
According to official figures, bilateral trade has multiplied 2.4 times, from 845 million in 2003 to 2,014,000 in 2012, i.e. a 10% annual average increase.
Nearly 81% of the Colombians shipments to Japan focused on products of the agricultural and agro-industrial sector: fresh and dried bananas, canned mangoes and potatoes, among others.
Meanwhile, Colombian imports of Japanese products increased 2.6 times in the last decade, from 643,000,000 to 1,654,000,000 in 2012, mainly of machinery (36%), motor vehicles and parts (27%), laminates and tubes (21%) and chemicals (14%).
Source: marcotradenews.com