Trade Capacity Building Support Program

In Colombia, AECOM International Development implemented the USAID-funded Trade Capacity Building Support Program (TCBS), which promoted the adoption and implementation of reforms and facilitated policies favorable for achieving the maximum benefits from a Free Trade Agreement (FTA) between Colombia and the United States. Under TCBS, AECOM International Development experts worked with the Government of Colombia and other public and private sector institutions to define, prioritize, and implement priority reforms in the areas of trade, investment policy, and institutional adjustment. The project's foremost objective was to support Colombia in achieving the successful conclusion and implementation of a FTA between Colombia and the United States in a manner that maximized the associated benefits to Colombia's private sector.

Policy reforms covered a wide range of trade and investment areas and were designed to remove policy/regulatory rigidities, thereby encouraging positive private sector response to opportunities of the FTA, while supporting the Government of Colombia in achieving its trade, investment, and integration goals. Areas addressed included:

• Senate seminars on the FTA and its benefits
• Labor
• Customs reform
• Technical barriers to trade
• Tax Benchmarking
• Securities markets
• Investment
• Modeling
• Sanitary and phyto-sanitary measures
• Telecommunications
• Technical cooperation strategies
• Services statistics
• Professional services
• Competitiveness
• Arbitration
• Intellectual property rights
• Energy sector

For these areas, AECOM International Development helped develop the policy and regulatory reform strategy in areas jointly agreed on by USAID the Government of Colombia. The Trade Table Memos (or "notes") issued by the Government of Colombia during the negotiations of the FTA identified trade capacity building needs and defined most of the specific technical assistance requests to which the project responded.

As a result of the project work, the first Macroeconomic Impact model of tax reform changes on Colombia (2005-2020), designed with project support, provided the main reform recommendations on tax policy and incentives to the Uribe administration. AECOM International Development also completed the first Sector Selection analysis for the Colombia Investment Promotion Agency (IPA) and assisted the IPA in designing the first Investment Promotion Strategy. The first Roadmap on Administrative Barriers in Colombia and the impediments to doing business, completed by project experts, provided strategic guidance in reform implementation to Proexport, the Ministry of Trade, the Camara de Commercio Colombo Americana, and the Investment Steering Committee, as well as USAID. The project also played the leading role in designing and presenting to the Colombian government a preventive labor inspection model consistent with the legal principles and regulations of the current Colombian system. Through its field office in Bogota, we provided seminars and training to relevant public and private sector audiences, and also managed trainings for government, private, and international participants in Colombia's several major cities. In the private sector, representatives from more than 100 companies were trained on methods to comply with and receive certification in major international standards.