Support to EU Market Access Team and Trade Policy Analysis in Colombia

The Project at A Glance

The EU-Colombia FTA, provisionally applied since 2013, is a fundamental trade policy instrument complementing the trade environment reforms with the opportunities generated by trade with 500 million consumers in Europe. However, the analysis of bilateral trade shows that the opportunities did materialise, although not to the expected extent.
International Economics Consulting will assist the EU Delegation in Bogota, by improving knowledge of market access barriers and providing EU SMEs with updated information on accessing and investing in the Colombian market.

What We Found

The trade agreement with the European Union is a significant strength in Colombia’s trade agenda, the FTA was expected to open up a number of market opportunities for key export sectors that would benefit from the elimination or reduction of tariffs and it could support the opening of the Union’s market to exporters from Colombia. Ex-post evaluation of the implementation of the FTA, assessed the impact of the Agreement is overall positive, although relatively limited.
Our Expert Team will actively contribute to DG Trade’s critical barrier exercise with Colombia, by providing robust and timely updates that will also uphold the EU-Colombia Trade Committee. Effectively, this should lead to ensuring open and undistorted access to international markets, including new market access and open trade flows to benefit the EU’s industry, workers, and citizens.

Our Strategy and Impact

The previous phase of the Market Access Team project identified significant barriers in various sectors negatively impacting the cost of doing business in Colombia. In this second phase of the project the EU is committed to increase bilateral trade and investment, considering the market opportunities for key export sectors for which the remaining market access barriers need to be phased out.
A team of experts in Colombia, is focusing on the following specific goals:

Reinforcing the knowledge base of DG Trade and the EU Delegation on market access and investment issues in Colombia, and follow up Colombia’s WTO Trade Policy Review and OECD accession commitments;
Supporting the legal analysis on market access issues in Colombia, with a special emphasis put on monitoring EU access to Colombia’s public procurement market; and
Providing up-to-date, easy to access and comprehensive information on the Colombian regulatory environment to EU SMEs.

Our Core Solutions

As businesses seek to expand operations into new markets, the need to explore global supply chains and understand the international regulatory framework becomes crucial. At International Economics Consulting, we build tailor-made strategies for both import and export-oriented business solutions.