An opportunity to grow business there through the Georgia Hispanic Chamber mission.
A market of 50 million people with a longstanding free trade agreement with the U.S. and a growing appetite for engagement with Atlanta, Colombia has never seemed closer to Georgia than today.
But very soon, the Georgia Hispanic Chamber of Commerce will demystify the country further, leading a trip there for the first time in more than a decade.
The chamber’s Nov. 16-22 mission will lead local companies to Bogota, the capital, and Medellin, the country’s commercial center, setting up meetings with business leaders and government officials while mixing in a variety of cultural experiences. Learn more about the trip
Chamber CEO Veronica Maldonado-Torres says it’s the continuation of international business missions the chamber started up again last year with a trip to El Salvador.
“We have members and folks that want to open up operations in Latin America. We have Latin America calling us to open up operations here in Georgia, and because of our central location and the wonderful industries that we have, we said we really need to go back to these business mission trips,” she said.
The opportunity to engage with South America’s third largest economy was one of many floated during a special edition of Global Atlanta’s Consular Conversations series at the law firm of Miller & Martin PLLC.
The event began with a keynote address from Consul General Adriana Arias Castiblanco, who highlighted the way Colombia has overcome a checkered past to become a key destination for manufacturers and tech companies.
The U.S. and Colombia have enjoyed 200 years of diplomatic relations, punctuated in recent decades by a defense partnership that has helped bring about peace in Colombia and set the country up for its recent streak of dynamism.
“We are strategic partners for one another, and that is very important to know that we have confidence,” Ms. Arias said.
The strong diaspora of 50,000 Colombians in Georgia and more than 140,000 in the Southeast has taken up much of the consulate’s attention, but Ms. Arias hopes to focus more on external investment and trade issues.
One of those diaspora members is Hernando Galindo, who also runs the Atlanta office of ProColombia, the investment recruitment and trade promotion agency for the country.
In a presentation, Mr. Galindo portrayed Colombia as a manufacturing and agricultural powerhouse, a haven of biodiversity hosting the COP16 summit and a growing tech hub powering some of the largest software enterprises in the U.S.
“Anyone manufacturing in Colombia has access to that 1.5 billion people,” Mr. Galindo said.
He added that the country is seeing a groundswell of interest as companies aim to move their supply chains back to the Americas to reduce reliance on China and improve resiliency.
Mining, pharmaceuticals, machinery and apparel — especially shapewear, where Colombian company Leonisa has a Norcoss distribution center — are all key opportunities. Colombia, he said, was in the running for a Tesla factory that ultimately landed in Mexico.
“Anything you’d like to do you can do in Colombia,” Mr. Galindo said.
A Panel of Panoramic Engagement With Atlanta
More Atlanta companies have been finding out firsthand how Colombia can help fulfill their objectives.
YKK, the Japanese zipper company which runs its Americas operations from Atlanta, set up a new factory in near Medellin in recent months. Atlanta’s Spectrum International has a Latin American fulfillment center there. RickyJoy, a candy and yogurt drink company run by a native of Colombia in metro Atlanta, has been looking to source from the country. Vensure, private employment organization that is a member of the Georgia Hispanic Chamber, has operations in Bogota.
Even the largest Georgia firms have seen benefit in the country.
United Parcel Service Inc. has not only had customs brokerage and logistics operations at the ports of Buenaventura on the Pacific and Cartagena, Barranquilla and Santa Marta on the Atlantic, but it has also taken advantage of Colombia’s skilled labor force, investing in knowhow that has helped continuously grow the local business and support international operations, Alvaro Moscoso Diaz, regional tax manager at UPS, said during a panel discussion at Miller & Martin.
In Medellin, a UPS shared services center has seen rapid uptake.
“We started with 200 employees. Now we are 1,000 employees. Basically, we are exporting services from Medellin to the United States, providing services like customer services, billing,” Mr. Diaz said said. “Why Medellin? The ability to get multilingual people in the workforce, not only in English and Spanish, but we are able to get people that speak more than those languages, as well as a special regime about exports.”
In Bogota, the company is investing in growing Latin American cold-chain operations after acquiring Bomi, an Italian multinational with a health care facility there.
In the opposite direction, acquisitions have also become a growing pathway for Colombian companies entering the United States, said Alejando Zuluaga, a former CFO in the U.S. for Argos, the Medellin-based cement company with headquarters in Alpharetta.
Buying a firm can give Colombian companies a quick foothold in the market while overcoming cultural barriers and learning about U.S. regulations.
“Companies in Latin America, particularly in Colombia, are thinking that acquisitions need to be huge companies. It depends on the industry and everything, but you can, you can start small, and I recommend that,” said Mr. Zuluaga, who now runs BTZL Partners.
Another panelist, Viviana Montenegro, outlined how the Enterprise Innovation Institute at Georgia Tech has been helping build capacity for Colombian entrepreneurs, both helping them explore the U.S. market through the Soft Landings program and establishing a new innovation center in Medellin.
Funded with $2.5 million from an alumnus, Georgia Tech Medellin aims to help the city establish an innovation ecosystem by introducing programs like that have been successful in Atlanta, like the CREATE-X entrepreneurship program.
“We are opening the center, installing the capacity, training local people, convening all these entrepreneurs and universities to work together. And then, after year five, we are leaving and getting them to run the center,” Ms. Montenegro said.
It’s not just Bogota and Medellin or the tourism hub of Cartagena that are seeing interest from Atlanta.
Cali, the largest city near Colombia’s Pacific coast that has sought to emulate Atlanta’s success in building its minority business community, welcomed 20 Black-owned businesses from Atlanta during a historic trade mission last year.
Ricardo Berris, who chairs the Atlanta Black Chambers Global Opportunities Committee, said the trip was part of a broader initiative to help Black businesses in Atlanta go global by building up their trade and investment partnerships with their counterparts in Africa, the Caribbean and beyond.
“We recognized that just down the street there 5 million people who look like us,” he said of the Afro-Colombian community. “We thought that outside of the Caribbean, that was the next best group we wanted to interact with.”
The followups have been tangible, not only from the Atlanta side. Mr. Berris recently traveled back to Cali and observed that the city had set up the Next Room program to help Black-owned businesses export, partially modeled on the chamber’s initiative. He also attended the packed Petronio Alvarez music festival.
On Oct. 3, the GO committee will welcome Daniel García-Peña Jaramillo, Colombian ambassador to the United States, to Atlanta as part of a delegation coming for the committee’s Global Opportunities Week, the next step toward an annual conference it hopes to host in 2025. Contact Mr. Berris about attending
Atlanta has been the target of other Colombian delegations in recent years. ProBarranquilla, the organization promoting the city on Colombia’s Atlantic coast, hosted an investment seminar in 2023 in Atlanta during which it highlighted opportunities as a near-shoring hub with key free-trade zones near Caribbean-facing ports. Watch that seminar here
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