ENTREVISTA A HESHAM MOUSA QATAR, GULF TIMES 31 March 2009

Official believes GCC -Colombia trade relations will blossom

Publish Date: Tuesday,31 March, 2009, at 12:22 PM Doha Time

Hesham Mousa Trade between Colombia and GCC countries is poised to record a good growth in coming years. President of the Colombia-UAE and GCC Chamber of Commerce Hesham Mousa told Gulf Times that there is considerable awareness about the region among Colombian business houses these days. This has grown considerably in the last few years since the setting up of the chamber, with the sole aim of promoting trade to the region’s countries, said Mousa. “The latest figures showed that the trade between the GCC and Colombia stood at $2000 million in 2008,” he said, adding that it is bound to grow further this year. Mousa, who migrated to Bogota more than 25 years ago from Egypt, claimed the business image of Colombia has undergone a sea change in the last few years and more and more overseas businessmen were showing interest in investing in the South American country. Though there are a lot of cultural differences between Colombia and GCC states, the will and determination to do business is more or less the same on both sides, Mousa believes. Colombia, he said, has extensive natural resources and people come there for both doing business and also to spend time as tourists. Colombia has the fifth largest economy in Latin America and has the third largest population of 44 million. He said the country provided preferential market access to more than 1.2bn consumers owing to Free Trade Agreements (FTA). Mousa feels the focus of South American business would shift more to GCC states in view of the political stability in the region. “Along with bringing investments to Colombia, we would also help the entrepreneurs here to set up joint ventures in the GCC states,” said the Colombian chamber official. Mousa also spoke on the recent arrival of major international groups as Siemens, GE Money, India’s Tata and SAB Miller (UK) to Colombia. “That way we have been able to attract capital investments to the tune of $6.5bn.” Asked about the recent migration of a large number of West Asian Arab nationals to the South American countries, Mousa said new arrivals have started falling of late.