The second edition of the International Economic Forum Latin America and the Caribbean, dubbed the 'Latin American Davos,' kicks off on Wednesday. The event will feature eight dignitaries from Latin America and the Caribbean and the task of rethinking the region's positioning on the global stage. The forum, presented as a complement to the meeting in Davos, Switzerland, is organized by the Latin American Development Bank CAF and the Government of Panama.
The forum will debate the main challenges and opportunities for Latin America and the Caribbean and reflect on the region's most urgent challenges to build, through dialogue, solutions that drive growth, inclusion, and competitiveness, CAF said.
Rulers of Bolivia, Rodrigo Paz; Colombia, Gustavo Petro; Ecuador, Daniel Noboa; Guatemala, Bernardo Arévalo; the Prime Minister of Jamaica, Andrew Holness, and the elected President of Chile, José Antonio Kast, will also speak at the opening ceremony.
Brazil's president and guest of honor, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, will arrive in Panama on Tuesday to inaugurate the event alongside his Panamanian and host counterpart, José Raúl Mulino. It is expected that both countries will sign an investment facilitation agreement. Presidents of Bolivia and Brazil will hold their first bilateral meeting within the forum, authorities of both countries confirmed this Monday during a working visit by Brazilian Foreign Minister Mauro Vieira to La Paz.
The event, which will run until Thursday, will bring together more than 2,500 global political, economic, and academic leaders, including former Colombian presidents Iván Duque and Juan Manuel Santos; former Costa Rican president Laura Chinchilla; former Chilean president Eduardo Frei; and former Italian Prime Minister Enrico Letta. Representatives from UN, Organization of American States (OAS), European Commission, OECD, OPEC, and ECLAC will also participate, as well as the 2024 and 2025 Nobel Prize winners in Economics, James Robinson and Philippe Aghion.
Currently, no official delegation has announced a bilateral meeting between Petro and Noboa, but this is not ruled out in light of the Colombian leader's statements last Saturday, when he expressed his willingness to meet with his Ecuadorian counterpart. A possible bilateral meeting between Petro and Noboa is also generating interest, in the context of the crisis facing Colombia and Ecuador over the fight against drugs, which includes a tariff war.
Noboa announced on January 21 that he will apply a 30% tariff on imports from Colombia starting February 1, due to the alleged 'lack of reciprocity and firm actions' in the fight against drug trafficking on the border. The Colombian government responded with a tariff of the same percentage on more than 50 Ecuadorian products and the suspension of electricity sales to its southern neighbor.
