It is an honour and a privilege to testify before our Parliament on the Canada-Colombia Free Trade Agreement.
First of all, I'll say a few words about myself. I am a dual citizen. I was born in Colombia and went to Canada, to Ottawa, in 1986, at the end of Mr. Betancur's presidency. I was then Chief Statistician of Colombia. Before that, I was the dean of the Los Andes University School of Management and a full professor there.
I have worked in Ottawa in the high-tech sector, including in international business development for Canadian companies. I have taught some international marketing courses in the MBA program at the University of Ottawa.
For the last three years I have been working in Colombia in an open-pit coal mine as head of the social engagement division of corporate social responsibility. In the last few months, I have been tasked with founding a college that will provide secondary technical education in the surrounding communities.
Cerrejón is a mine owned in three equal parts by subsidiaries of BHP Billiton, Anglo American, and Xstrata. It is the world's largest exporting open-pit coal mine. It is located in La Guajira Peninsula in northeast Colombia, bordering Venezuela and the Caribbean Sea.
The operation integrates exploration, production, transportation, and shipping of high-grade thermal coal. It provides employment for more than 10,000 people. In 2008 and 2009, we produced and exported about 31 million tonnes, of which one million went to the maritime provinces in Canada.
La Guajira's socio-economic development is tied to Cerrejón and the mining sector. Over half the provincial GDP is generated by Cerrejón...[Technical Difficulty--Editor].
Are we down? Can you hear me?