Nicaraguan business leaders to meet with U.S. Department of Commerce

PRLog (Press Release) - Oct. 12, 2012 - Nicaraguan businessman César Zamora, Vice President of the Association of Chambers of Commerce from Latin America and the Caribbean (AACCLA), announced today that a group of Nicaraguan business leaders will meet in late October with Walter Bastian, U.S. Deputy Assistant Secretary for the Western Hemisphere of the Department of Commerce International Trade Administration, during a competitiveness forum in Cali, Colombia.

Twenty-five Nicaraguan business leaders have been invited by Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos to participate in the competitiveness forum.

“It is indispensable that we thaw and advance the trade dialogue between our two countries,” Zamora said, after meeting with Bastian today in Washington, D.C.

“After an extensive meeting with the deputy assistant secretary of commerce, we agreed that, in addition to the coordination between the private sectors from Nicaragua and the United States, it is also important to have the same coordination between Nicaraguan business leaders and the U.S. Department of Commerce,” Zamora said.

Last year, Nicaragua exported US$662.8 million in goods to the United States, representing a 15 percent increase versus the US$574.0 million attracted in 2010.

General Alvaro Baltodano, Presidential Delegate for Investments, visited Washington, D.C. in June with the objective of participating at a forum organized by AACCLA, in order to present a convincing case for why the United States should continue to work with Nicaragua to achieve sustainable social and economic development.

This article was first published by The Nicaraguan Dispatch.