Venezuela's Exports to Colombia Grew by 102 Percent

On Sunday, citing Luis Alberto Russian, chairman of the Venezuelan-Colombian Chamber of Economic Integration, announced that his country's exports to Colombia grew by 102 percent year on year in the first four months of 2023.

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Venezuela exports to Colombia amounted to some US$48 million from January to April, compared with just US$22.6 million a year ealier, he said.

After Colombian President Gustavo Petro took office in August 2022, Venezuela and Colombia embarked on a process of rapprochement and normalized relations.

One of the first measures was to reopen their shared border, which Petro's predecessor Ivan Duque closed during his term (2018-2022). In February, Colombia and Venezuela signed a partial scope agreement to facilitate trade.

Last week, Colombian Trade Minister German Umaña assured that the reopening of the land border with Venezuela has been a success due to the reactivation of local economies.

"The integration of borders is fundamentally revived in conditions different from those we always live in," he stated at "The Border as a Bridge: Colombia-Venezuela Trade Integration," a binational meeting held in Cucuta, the capital of the department of Norte de Santander.

"Fundamentally, we do not aim so much at trade as at investment. We seek to develop binational investments for industrial and productive complementarity," Umaña explained.