Andean Business Meeting closes with expectations of 100 million dollars in business

Guayaquil, Mar. 29, 2012.- The two-day Andean Business Meeting, which brought together 846 businessmen from Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador and Peru in Guayaquil, came to a close today with expectations of business in the neighborhood of one hundred million dollars.  

The Chair of the Andean Committee of Export Promotion Authorities and President of Colombia’s PROEXPORT, María Claudia Lacouture, pointed out that although the figures aren’t final, the results of the first day’s sessions had raised expectations of possible business transactions from arrangements made at 5,437 30-minute business meetings.

María Claudia Lacouture emphasized that most of the 846 participants at the Meeting were small and medium businessmen, sixty percent of them participating for the first time in a round of business meetings.  This would offer them an important learning opportunity for internationalizing their companies.  

Bolivia’s Commercial Attaché in Ecuador, Eduardo Ibarnegaray, representative of PROMUEVE BOLIVIA, for his part, called the Meeting the most important event of recent times.  He explained that Bolivian businessmen dealing in manufactured goods like medicines, ceramics, agribusiness, plastics, textiles and wooden products were attending.  “We must give more emphasis to events of this kind because they unite us and create jobs,” he stressed.    

PRO ECUADOR’s President, María Fernanda de Luca, also pointed up the presence of small and medium enterprises from the manufacturing sector.  “Business transactions have been started in regard to processed food products, building materials and pharmaceutical products,” she declared, after reporting that 140 exporters and 90 buyers from Ecuador had participated in the event.  

Luis Torres, PROMPERU’s Export Promotion Director, for his part, stated that “this meeting has offered an enormous opportunity for not only trade, but also for the transnationalization of small and medium companies.”  

The Director General of the Andean Community General Secretariat, Ana María Reátegui, underscored the importance of this Business Meeting for the integration and joint efforts of the Member Countries.  “The economic and commercial area is not the only sphere in which we are moving ahead, but it continues to be the backbone and is the area in which we have more tangible results,” she pointed.  With this meeting, she added, we have shown that integration is advancing and has much to accomplish.”  

At the press conference, the highest-level export promotion authorities of the CAN Member Countries unanimously emphasized the high level of participation of small and medium businessmen and the leading role played by manufactured products, particularly garments, building materials and household articles.  

They also pointed up the importance of reinforcing themselves internally, in order to cope with any international crisis or untoward occurrence.  Peru’s representative stated that the time had come to strengthen their internal market. 

The representative of Ecuador, for his part, declared that the Business Meeting had enabled the countries to look toward the Andean market once again and to observe its great potential.