SAN JUAN DE COLON, VENEZUELA (AP) – The freight company owned by Alfredo Rosales and his brothers was hustling, its 50 or so trucks constantly on the go hauling about one million tonnes of coal, cement, flour and other goods every year in commerce between Venezuela and Colombia.
Their work came to an abrupt halt in 2015, when the socialist government of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro shut down border crossings with its neighbour after years of deterioriating relations with conservative Colombian administrations.
“When they closed the border, we had nowhere to go to work. It seriously hurt us,” Rosales said as he looked over the family’s quiet five-acre truck depot in the western Venezuelan community of San Juan de Colon, on a plateau with views of lush mountains. They have only a handful of trucks now, the rest sold off, some for scrap.
Yet optimism is starting to creep into the border area, now that leftist Gustavo Petro is being inaugurated as Colombia’s president yesterday promising to normalise relations with Maduro. Colombia’s incoming foreign minister and his Venezuelan counterpart announced in late July that the border will gradually re-open after the two nations restore diplomatic ties.
“And this is what remains, hope to start working,” Rosales said.
Despite those hopes, business owners and residents in the region know meaningful vehicular activity across the border will not resume overnight. Venezuela’s economic woes have only worsened in the years since border commerce was shut down and over six million people left seeking better lives mostly in Latin America and the Caribbean, with some 1.8 million migrating to Colombia.
Colombia and Venezuela share a border of about 2,700 kilometres. Bandits, drug traffickers, paramilitary groups and guerrillas take advantage of the remote and desolate landscape to operate, though that did not deter trade before the closure.
And goods have continued to enter Venezuela, illegally over dirt roads manned by armed groups and others with the blessing of officials on both sides of the border. Similarly, illegal imports also enter Colombia, but on a smaller scale.
On Saturday, men slogged loads of soft drinks, bananas, cooking oil, specialty paper, scrap metal and other goods on carts, bicycles, motocycles and their own backs down an illegal road turned into a muddy mess by rain.
Sanctioned trade, however, would flow at a much higher rate.
Although the border is long, all but two of the official border crossings between Venezuela and Colombia are concentrated in a 75-kilometre stretch, which before the shutdown handled 60 per cent of commercial activity between the neighbors. The country’s northern-most bridge is about 330 miles away and Venezuela continued to permit some cargo to cross there.
“The expectations are very positive, and we have been waiting for a situation like this for so long,” said Luis Russián, chairman of the Chamber of Venezuelan-Colombian Economic Integration, which is projecting that the agricultural, pharmaceutical and personal hygiene sectors will be among the first to benefit from the re-opening. “We consider it a new chapter that is going to be written between Venezuela and Colombia.”
Russián said a few Colombian companies have shown interest in joining the chamber as they consider whether to try to enter the Venezuelan market. The group had about 180 members in the late 2000s but now has roughly half that.
Food, cleaning products, auto parts, chemicals and myriad other goods used to cross between the two nations. Commerce remained strong even in the early years of Venezuela’s socialist governments, when the country’s oil dollars allowed businesses to import all sorts of things. Those relationships were strained when Venezuela’s economic slide left businesses unable to meet payments and access lines of credit.
The commercial exchange that in 2014 reached USD2.4 billion was reduced last year to about USD406 million, of which USD331 million were imports from Colombia, according to the Venezuela-based chamber. The group estimates this year’s activity could reach USD800 million if the border remains closed but could go as high as USD1.2 billion if the crossings reopen to vehicles.
The Venezuelan government has estimated that the commercial exchange within a year of a fully reopened border could exceed USD4 billion.
“That is going to generate employment, that is going to generate wealth, that is going to generate possibilities to produce, to carry out commercial exchanges,” said President of the Venezuelan National Assembly’s Permanent Commission on Economy, Finance and Social Development Jesús Faría.
Petro, unlike outgoing President Ivan Duque, has expressed willingness to improve ties with Venezuela. After Maduro’s 2018 re-election, Duque, along with dozens of other nations, stopped recognising him as Venezuela’s legitimate leader. Duque supported the economic sanctions that the United States and European Union imposed on Venezuela and repeatedly accused Maduro of protecting some Colombian rebels.
More than relations will have to be repaired, however, before trailer trucks, tankers and other large vehicles can resume moving between the two countries.
On the Venezuelan side, roads leading to the border are in disrepair and the bridges haven’t been maintained. One span even shakes when pedestrians push particularly heavy loads on dolly carts. A bridge that hadn’t gotten to open before the closure is still blocked by more than a dozen shipping containers and cement barricades.
Venezuelan truckers lack permits that they stopped paying for when business dwindled. Their counterparts in Colombia want safety guarantees.
Venezuelan business owners hope that somehow financing can be arranged, as banks stopped offering loans due to the country’s runaway inflation and other economic problems.
