The meeting will now come to order. This is the 41st meeting of the Standing Committee on International Trade.
We are going to immediately welcome our guests from Colombia. Today we all, I think, have the interpretation working properly.
We're sorry for the delay. We had votes in our House of Commons just moments ago, and it delayed the start of our meeting.
Let me welcome our witnesses again, as we did two days ago: Walter Navarro, president of the Industry Union of Professional Employees of the Public Utilities in Colombia; Germán Restrepo, president of Empaques S.A. Workers Union; Luis Fernando Cadavid, president of Clothing and Textile Industry Union; and Gerardo Sánchez, the president of Rionegro section, SINTRACONTEXA Union.
Gentlemen, we very much appreciate your coming and taking the time today as well. We're sorry that we're slow getting started and that we had technical difficulties earlier in the week.
Our usual practice here is that we ask our witnesses to begin with an opening statement. I will leave it to you to decide whether one or more of you will present. I understand that Mr. Navarro is prepared to begin with opening remarks. If others of you would like to comment before we begin questions, we'd welcome that too.
To begin with, may I ask Mr. Navarro to start with an opening statement, which will be followed, of course, by questions of our committee.
Señor Navarro.