CAF highlights Colombian competitiveness policy

The new government’s decision to continue this policy is “a positive sign”, affirmed Fidel Jaramillo, the Corporation’s Vice President of Development Strategies

Colombia has been a pioneer in the region for the implementation of institutional strategies to promote competitiveness, CAF’s Vice President of Development Strategies, Fidel Jaramillo declared today, during his participation in the VII Meeting for Productivity and Competitiveness, held in this City.

This country “has become an exporter of institutional experiences” in the area, Jaramillo emphasized. He highlighted the fact that the model to create a network that would coordinate private and public efforts tending to achieve a greater competitiveness has been studied and put into practice by other Andean Nations.

The decision of the present government to continue forward with the network “Colombia Competes”, designed and implemented during the former administration, was rated by CAF’s Vice President as “a positive sign”.

Fidel Jaramillo’s presentation was centered on the mechanisms needed to take the subject of Competitiveness from theory to practice. For the high ranking officer of the Corporation, in spite of the consensus in the diagnosis and recommendations regarding the situation of competitiveness in Latin America, advances in design and implementation of policies have been limited.

Jaramillo declared that, in addition to the coordination between the public and private sectors, a key aspect for the success of a national competitiveness strategy is to be able to show concrete results in the short term, such as the increase in exports and improvement in the indices of competitiveness.