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The reopening of the border between Colombia and Venezuela does not in itself guarantee the recovery of what was once a binational trade of more than 6,000 million dollars a year. France 24 spoke with Colombian union leaders, who are not very optimistic in the short term.
Javier Díaz Molina remembers with nostalgia that time when Colombia sent, from arequipe (a local sweet), to vehicles to Venezuela. It was 2008, a year in which, for the first time in history, binational commerce between neighbors exceeded 7,000 million dollars.
The commercial flow between the two nations had experienced various boom and bust stages since the 1970s, but its most important period of growth was between 2004 and 2009, according to the Banco de la República de Colombia.
As of that year, the political crisis erased what had been achieved in decades and marked the beginning of a decline that continues to this day, recalls Javier Díaz, who has presided over the National Association for Foreign Trade for more than 20 years (Analdex ), which brings together the main Colombian exporting companies.
On Monday, October 4, the vice president of Venezuela, Delcy Rodríguez, announced the opening of the border closed since 2015, which she considered “a very direct message to the productive forces” of both countries and, especially, “to the binational commercial actors.” However, the leader of Colombian exporters has not caught this optimism.
Opening the border is just a shy step
“The opening of borders is a necessary requirement, but the issue of payments is fundamental. If they don’t assure me (as an exporter) that they will pay me, I can’t sell, ”Javier Díaz told France 24.
The president of the National Poultry Federation, Fenavi, Gonzalo Moreno, agrees with the leader of the exporters: “One thing is that the border is reopened and another that we can enter with products such as chicken or eggs.”
The union leader added that “what worries us most is how we are going to guarantee payments and with whom we are going to communicate in Venezuela, in addition to whether that country can guarantee the adequate cold chain, in the case of chickens.”
A binational trade of ‘coming and going’
In the mid-2000s, more than 4,000 products reached Venezuela from Colombia; between food, hygiene and pharmaceutical products, raw materials, vehicles, and others, from 3,000 companies.
In 2014, before the closing of borders, the commercial exchange between Colombia and Venezuela accumulated 2,427 million dollars. Then came the crisis and the figure plummeted almost by half in 2015, to be at a minimum during the following years.
When the definitive border closure occurred in August 2015, the commercial flow had been around 3 billion dollars for several years. In the following years the annual average did not even reach a third. And in 2020 it barely exceeded $ 200 million.
After the boom in Colombian-Venezuelan trade that occurred between 2005 and 2008, when it multiplied about 2.3 times, the dynamics was “negatively affected by the economic problems of Venezuela and by the trade restrictions imposed by the neighboring country on exports. Colombian, “said the Central Bank at the time.
Colombian exports to Venezuela in recent years have been reduced to few quantities of essential goods purchased by state companies. For Javier Díaz, from Analdex, “border trade is going to be activated, but I don’t see large-scale exports yet. There is no security in the payment ”, sentenced.
With EFE
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