The Colombian negotiating team's visit to Turkey is already confirmed. It will be held from Wednesday May 30th to June 2nd. The objective of this visit is to make the sixth round for the Free Trade Agreement (FTA) between Colombia and Turkey.
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Amongst those who are in going are Javier Gamboa and Felipe Jaramillo. They seek to unlock the discussions, especially in the agricultural sector (with bananas) and textiles. Two of the major obstacles that have become evident, as well to the Civets group, that is also a member.
Once the V round was concluded, which was held in Bogota on February 15th, Gamboa said that up to that point negotiations had been completed for most of the articles of agreement, with a total of 10 closed chapters of the original 13.
Those articles correspond to customs, technical barriers in trade, trade protection, intellectual property, competition, general provisions, dispute settlements, trade and sustainable development, exceptions and final provisions and cooperation.
The president of the Turkish-Colombo Chamber of Commerce, Yunus Yaman, said that "the embassies still do not have enough information on this topic, on the agenda that will be addressed, the latest information is that there are disagreements on sensitive products for both countries."
However, it is expected that this will be the final meeting. "We hope that after this round, the delegations will meet again, to define details and in the second half of this year the FTA will be signed between the two countries," he said. So at the end of this year agreement is signed.
According to figures from Mincomercomercio, Colombian exports to Turkey in the period from January to November 2011, reached USD 534.7 million, ie there was an increase of 175% compared to the same period in 2010 when the amount was USD 194.9 million.