COMPETITIVENESS, FDI, AND TECHNOLOGY FOSTERING

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COMPETITIVENESS,FDI, AND TECHNOLOGY FOSTERING

• Some data from Colombia

JOSE L VILLAVECES DIRECTOR COLOMBIAN OBSERVATORY
OF SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY
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Colombia is in the middle class of Latin America

• Mexico, Brasil, Argentina, ...
• Venezuela, Colombia, Chile, Costa Rica, ...
• ....

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The growth of S T
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Number of groups producing published results in
Colombia
A steady policy of ST during the 1990.s begins
to give results
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• Ph.D. Students in several countries of the world
• Ph.D. Programmes developed in Colombia
• Increase in governmental investment
• Preferential taxes to innovating enterprises
• Technological development centers for several
  sectors created
• Several policies for attracting FDI

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• Research of some strength in biotechnology mainly
  aimed to agriculture and health
• Genomic research in Yucca, Beans, Rice, Banana
• Frontier research in the development of synthetic
  vaccines (malaria)
• Research in biopesticides.

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• Colombia is an exporter of health services
• Colombia has the largest Center for Research on
  coffee in the world.
• All of this implies a basis of knowledge that
  begins to be noticed.

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Manual de Bogotá

• Adaptation of the Oslo Handbook to study
  Industrial Innovation in Latin America
• Recently published
• OCYT RICYT
• (Observatorio Colombiano de Ciencia y Tecnología
  Red Latinoamericana de Indicadores de Ciencia y
  Tecnología)

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Economy stagnates since 1996

• After a rapid growth between 1986
• and 1995, economy stagnates
• Many mayor TNCs are present but they are
  diminishing their investments or leaving
• Oil companies, agricultural and biological,

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• IBM
• Monsanto
• Cisco
• Nabisco
• Texas Petroleum
• Occidental Petroleum
• BP
• General Motors
• Mazda
• ...........

• Spanish Banks
• CIAT
• Privatization of energy services
• Privatization of telecommunications
• Road maintenance privatized.

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• Because of WAR
• WAR?
• 3 irregular armed fractions and the National Army
• Two of them were long time ago leftist guerrilla
  movements
• One more was a vigilante army formed against
  guerrillas

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• Today they are all
• DRUG LORDS fighting to control one of the biggest
  business in the world.
• Two of them are in the President Bushs list of
  the most dangerous terrorist groups in the world

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• Several TNC executives have been kidnapped
• Oil lines are regularly sabotaged
• Several TNCs have paid ransom money
• Sometimes preventive ransom money
• which is illegal and helps foster the violent
  armies

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National and international policies

• For S T development
• For Learning Systems
• For FDI attraction
• For Peace Making
• For fighting terrorism

For Drug Control