AGEXPORT's goal: one million employments in four years

05 Sep '11

4 min read

The Guatemalan Exporters Association, -AGEXPORT- proposes that by promoting three strategic pillars, Guatemala could increase exports, in the next four years, up to US$17,400 million per year, which would result in the duplication of employments, generating two million jobs throughout the country.

AGEXPORT has launched its proposal: Duplicating exports and employments in Guatemala, renewed Strategy 2012-2015, which sets out how the country may obtain a sustainable and economic development by taking advantage of global opportunities.

"A recent study revealed that a higher economic growth is expected for Guatemala, due to the promotion that exports have received this year… This is what we have been looking forward to for almost 3 decades, because exports have created an employment boom or employment growth in textile and land production, operations management, in distribution and marketing, in the supply of raw material sand services, and in additional meters of construction, energy consumption, food, etc,” expressed AGEXPORT´s President of the Board of Directors, Francisco Menendez.

This new proposal of AGEXPORT covers issues from a more direct participation of the President of the Republic of Guatemala in those institutions that are responsible for the promotion of foreign trade, to the inclusion of the rural areas in export related activities, enhancing the Supply Chain Project methodology. This proposal will be presented to the political parties, business associations, donors and research centers.

"The problem is that policies are not focused on linking poverty elimination with job creation, goods and services must be produced in a competitive way in order to reach the major international markets, which for small countries like ours, that have a high dependency on foreign trade in order to overcome challenges such as the reduction of 6.6 million people living in poverty,” explained Menendez.

Therefore, according to the exporters, in order to overcome national challenges, the strategy is based on three pillars: Strengthening of the institutions responsible for foreign trade, a new law to Promote Investment and Employment and the Development of Exportable Offer.

Agexport describes very precisely the immense opportunities that current global trends are making available for small countries with aggressive investment and export policies. The proposals are concrete, such as raising the National Export Council –CONAPEX- to the Presidential lead, with a co chairmanship of the Minister of Economy and the National Commissioner of Competitiveness as Executive Director. The proposal is that the legal document be a Decree of the Congress of the Republic, where there is also a solid legal basis for the National Program of Competitiveness -PRONACOM-, Invest in Guatemala and the Guatemala Trade & Investment-GTI-.

Also, there is a proposal to create a new law that will allow free zones as a key instrument of the state policy to attract investment and employment to Guatemala. This Law would contain tools in accordance with the WTO, which also would encourage resource allocation in special development zones, as well as the promotion of new fields based on information technology and services exports.

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