CNN interviews President Juan Manuel Santos as he tells Europe and the United States "Your disorder is affecting us,"
JOHN DEFTERIOS, CNN:
Colombia’s had a number of security issues through the years. It has
improved on that front. So what happens next? Indonesia, a great
population of 240 million consumers, but, again, are they going to
create wealth fast enough to boost growth and per capita income over the
next 10 years?
Well, a guest of Richard Quest seems
to think so. He’s the Colombian president, Juan Manuel Santos. He sat
down with Richard to look at the growth of emerging markets.
COLOMBIAN PRESIDENT, JUAN MANUEL SANTOS:
Other than our very strong economies that have a very good future,
right now, because of the political problems, Egypt is in a sort of a
limbo. But, for example, Turkey, I was with the president of Turkey
last Friday.
And we spoke about how Turkish - and
this is (inaudible). The Turkish president and I, in the year 2001, he
was prime minister, I was minister of finance, and both countries, it
had the worst economic situation and crisis in a hundred years. We had
to take very harsh measures, both of us.
And today, Turkey is growing at 8
percent. Colombia is growing almost 5 percent, almost 6 percent, might
be growing a bit higher. And we are coming to Europe - the Turkish
president is in London at this very moment. And that we are telling the
Europeans and the United States and the Japan, please do what you told
us to do 10 years ago.
DFTERIOS:
That’s, again, Juan Manuel Santos of Colombia. You can hear more of
CNN’s interview with the Colombian president. Stay tuned for "QUEST
MEANS BUSINESS." That’s in about two hours from now, right here, of
course, on CNN, where you can actually see Richard himself. You didn’t
get a chance to see him during that interview.
Quest Means Business
RICHARD QUEST, HOST, QUEST MEANS BUSINESS:
The message is "Please do what you told us to do 10 years ago. Do what
you say." That’s the message from Colombia’s president to the U.S. and
Europe. Juan Manuel Santos says these countries and continents need to
put their financial house in order. Otherwise, he sees an economic
hurricane sweeping the industrialized world.
Colombia is very much in a position to
wag the finger, expected to grow 5.5 percent this year, even though the
South American country didn’t make the BRIC, our BRIC’s club of
emerging economies.
It’s now in the so-called CIVETS
group, which, of course, as you’ll be well familiar, is Colombia,
Indonesia, Vietnam, Egypt, Turkey and South Africa. And, interestingly,
Turkey, South Africa is now in both CIVETS and BRICs. But we’re
sticking with CIVETS, particularly with Colombia.
I sat down with the president and started by asking him what advice he would give the U.S. and Europe.
COLOMBIAN PRESIDENT JUAN MANUEL SANTOS:
We’re saying what they said to us 10 years ago, put your house in order
because your disorder is affecting us. Take the decisions that are
necessary. Have the political will and the political capacity to take
unpopular decisions but necessary decisions because you’re going to
affect the whole world if you continue with this uncertainty.
QUEST: What is your
fear? Is it that you won’t have export markets? Is it the Brazilian
fear of a currency appreciation? What is Colombia’s fear if the U.S.,
particularly, and the E.U., doesn’t get its act together?
SANTOS:
All of the above. First, they don’t get their act together and they
try to get out of the recession through monetary policy and creating
money, that money will not stay because that money will go after a
better return that we are having.
And so they will appreciate our
currencies and create unemployment and hurt our competitiveness. Also,
they don’t grow, we still export the majority of our products to Europe,
to the United States, to Japan, to the industrialized countries and the
export might go down.
I’m not so sure what is going to
happen with the commodities, the price of commodities because that’s
going to a different phenomenon.
QUEST: The other
countries, the U.S. and the E.U., they’re not listening, are they? I
mean, you can be as diplomatic as you like, Mr. President. But the
reality is before the G-20, we had a G-20 FinMin meeting, where they
were given a warning. We had the G-20 in Cannes. We’ve just had the
failure of the super committee. You’ve got the failure of the E.U.
process.
SANTOS:
You’re right. They’re not - they’re not hearing or they’re hearing,
they’re not capable of delivering. I think it’s more the latter.
They’re hearing. And they know that they need to take tough
decisions. But this is a crisis that has a big political element there.
QUEST: As I look at
your economic situation at the moment, in the short and medium - and
maybe even in the long term, the cards are in your favor. You’ve got
robust growth. But you have only got growth - and I say only - of 5.5
percent. Is that sufficient for an emerging economy like yours?
SANTOS:
Yes, we - in our national economic (ph) development plan, we set of a
goal of about 5 percent year-over-year, and we made all our accounts
using a 5 percent growth. With that, we can finance the infrastructure
we need.
We can finance the social investment
that we need. Of course, we would hope for higher growth, and we are
aiming at a bit - a bit higher. But the minimum is 5 percent to be able
to attain our objectives.
QUEST: Obviously,
security is a key emphasis of any leader. But your emphasis is
primarily on building a Colombia that is economically sound and stable.
SANTOS:
I say that my plan, my national plan has three words: more employment,
former (ph) employment, less poverty and more security. And we’re
going in the right direction. For example, Colombia has created, in the
last 13 months, 1,085,000 jobs. No other country in the region has
done this.
And we’re creating jobs at a high
rate. This is extremely important for us. We’re taking out of extreme
poverty 350,000 families, which we have already identified. We have
them in a computer. There are needs (ph) and we’re, item by item, doing
this. We need to have growth, but with social - with a social emphasis
because Colombia and all Latin America (ph) were unequal countries
(ph).
QUEST: So, finally,
Mr. President, as you look at your agenda with those three pillars, what
could send it all wrong? What’s your biggest worry?
SANTOS:
I would say the - an international crisis, another recession, could
slow (ph) our growth and put us in trouble in - obtain very ambitious
objectives. But on - in general, we’re quite well protected. Our
reserves are very high. Our financial system is very sound. We have
low inflation. Our internal demand is strong. We are covered to a
point.