As part of the joint work of various ECLAC Divisions, within the framework of the Inclusive, Sustainable and Intelligent Cities (SICI) Project, multiple working meetings with government officials from different government Ministries were scheduled in Bogotá, Colombia: Ministry of Commerce and Industry, Ministry of Transportation, Secretariat of Mobility, TRANSMILENIO, National Planning Department (DNP), Ministry of Energy, Development Bank: FINDETER, and BANCOLDEX, as well as a group of private institutions related to electromobility, among others , the transport and logistics clusters, as well as the energy transition of the Bogotá Chamber of Commerce; the ANDI Automotive Chamber, a network of SME entrepreneurs that reconvert internal combustion vehicles with electric vehicles, represented by the Colombian Electromobility Association; and representatives of the National Learning Service (SENA).
The meetings also had the participation of academic experts in electromobility from various universities, among others, the University of La Salle, Sergio Arboleda, University of Valencia, among others. In some of the meetings, mainly the one held with the ANDI Automotive Chamber, businessmen representing the main automotive companies, General Motors, Renault, Hino, among others, participated.
There was also a meeting with technical experts in electromobility from the German GIZ Cooperation and the World Resource Institute (WRI).
The main theme of all the meetings was the presentation of the results of the Inclusive, Sustainable and Intelligent Cities (SICI) Project, which is financed and promoted by the German GIZ Cooperation. In the light of said presentation, work meetings were established around the conclusions of the First Stage of the CISI, identifying some central topics for the promotion of electromobility in Colombia. Among these points, the following stand out:
- The need to advance in having an ideal regulatory framework that allows the development of projects for the production and assembly of new electric vehicles, mainly buses, or, in turn, the conversion of internal combustion vehicles to electric vehicles.
- The importance of opening spaces in the regulatory framework for carrying out tests on converted vehicles, which would allow obtaining valuable data for the improvement of the operation, as well as the possibility of accelerating the process of conversion of loose vehicles, which required vehicles ” zero emissions” in at least 6,000 units, especially small and medium feeder buses.
- The challenge of having suitable mechanisms that make converted vehicles, mainly buses, able to be insured by local and international insurance companies.
- The need to have financing lines for investment projects related to electromobility, mainly for the development of new vehicles, the provision of vehicle conversion services, as well as loans for fleet renewal for new or converted electric vehicles.
The first meeting was held with the Ministry of Commerce, Industry and Tourism (MINCIT), with the presence of teams from the Vice Ministry of Business Development and the Vice Ministry of Foreign Trade. The main axis of work in this first meeting dealt with the full complementarity and alignment of the ECLAC Project with the Development Policy of the country, mainly with the Reindustrialization Policy of Colombia, the same one that seeks to close the productive gaps, strengthen the productive chains and investment, diversify and sophisticate the domestic and exportable offer, and deepen the integration of Colombia with Latin America and the Caribbean.
The new reindustrialization policy has as one of its 5 main axes, that of the Energy Transition, in addition to agro-industrialization and food sovereignty, health, the defense of life, and the territory and its industrial fabric.
The Director of Productive Development and Competitiveness of the Ministry, Mario Valencia, highlighted the need for Colombia to Transform the Productive Matrix with the inclusion of an equity component that includes the transformation of capacities of more than 60% of the population, specifically, The government seeks to boost the popular economy, including increasing productivity as the main challenge, with a public policy approach that favors sustainable mobility as part of a coherent energy transition, aimed at resolving the trade deficit by transforming intermediate goods into final goods, through the use of national capacities (human talent and investment). Colombia needs to produce vehicles, as well as pieces and parts consistent with greater productive integration, both nationally and regionally. In this sense, Colombia seeks a better regional integration that is productive. “Integration has to be productive,” he emphasized.
He announced that as part of the Reindustrialization Policy, several government institutions were developing a CONPES, that is, the axes of the new policy, through the definition of priority lines and concrete actions to promote all the axes of reindustrialization.
He highlighted the effort developed for the assembly of a first hydrogen bus, with green hydrogen, assembled by Superpolo and Marcopolo with the support of ECOPETROL, Transmilenio, and the Ministry of Energy, among other institutions.
The meeting concluded with an agreement to preliminarily consolidate a large joint event between ECLAC, MINCIT, and all the institutions that participate in the successive meetings held from April 17 to 21. Said event took place on Friday the 21st in the afternoon, with the participation of all the officials and/or delegates of the institutions that participated in the meetings, all indicated in the attached mission agenda.
The work agenda of said last meeting is included below, the same one that had a broad participation of all the interviewed institutions. The presentations with the conclusions of the mission are attached, the same one that had comments from the various institutions. The good reaction of various government entities is highlighted, indicating that the work carried out by the mission will form a substantive part of the CONPES document that will guide the country’s Reindustrialization Policy.
