Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos Sunday arrived in Paris where he hopes to push French counterpart Nicolas Sarkozy to make the G-20 implement measures that stem the appreciation of currencies of emerging markets.
Santos was welcomed by French Secretary of State for Transport Thierry Mariani on greeted on Orly airport where the Colombian President received military honors.
In a speech, Santos said he will use his Wednesday meeting with Sarkozy to ask the French president to advocate better monetary terms for emerging economies while presidening the G-20 and G-8.
“We believe that the G-20 must take a series of measures to protect emerging countries like Colombia of the systematic changes we see in the world economy,” Santos said.
According to a press statement released on the presiential website on Saturday, monetary measures by the U.S., Europe and Japan have caused private investors to move their dollars, euros and yens abroad pushing up the value of currencies of emerging economies.
“That money goes to the most attractive countries and note the paradox: we are suffering the consequences of being an attractive country because the money is coming here and is appreciating our currency, undermines competitiveness to export products and agricultural products and that brings us trouble,” Santos said in the statement.
Colombia’s peso rose three percent against the dollar in January alone, despite several measures taken by the Colombian government and central bank in the last half of 2010 to fight an increasingly expensive peso. Analysist expect the peso to appreciate to 1,700 to one dollar in the next few months.
