International Trade committee  As was indicated by Gerardo, I want to thank you for the opportunity you have given us to appear before you as witnesses for the House of Commons of Canada. To conclude, I'd like to say the free trade agreement should be approved for Colombia, for a very simple reason, this bei

International Trade committee  I'll try to send it electronically.

International Trade committee  Gerardo will speak to you. He's our colleague from the textile industry.

International Trade committee  In Colombia, according to the last report of DANE, which is the agency responsible for statistics in the country, unemployment has increased to 11.5%. This means that in Colombia there are about 2.5 million unemployed. Likewise, exports to Ecuador and Venezuela, which represent 5

International Trade committee  First of all, on the percentages, in Colombia last year they killed approximately 40 unionists. And 40 unionists among 800,000 gives you six in 100,000, whereas the civil society, taking into account.... In any case, what I wanted to say was that violence against the unionists i

International Trade committee  I'd like to put some order into the comments made by the representative in terms of the following. In Colombia, the violence that is being experienced is not due mainly to inequality. I think in areas where there are the most riches in our country, which is in the mining and the

International Trade committee  Yes. In Colombia the violence that took place, the death of union members, at the end of the last century, that is in the 1990s, was due to a war between the paramilitary and the guerillas in the areas where there was the highest banana production and the greatest mining in our c

International Trade committee  The situation we have with neighbouring countries is good, as you know or as you've been told over the past few days. There's an embargo from Venezuela and Ecuador against Colombia, because ideologically speaking our country chose President Uribe and his policies as far as democr

International Trade committee  Thank you very much. For us it's an honour and a pleasure to be at this Canadian committee session looking at approving the free trade agreement. We are a group of unions. We met in 2007 in the department of Antioquia and in other departments of the country as well. We have a p