Federico Gutiérrez met with the National Guild Council: “we are going to give the guarantee that the country can continue to grow”

The presidential candidate of the Team for Colombia, Federico Gutiérrez, met with the National Guild Council on Wednesday afternoon. According to the president of the National Federation of Merchants (Fenalco), Jaime Alberto Cabal, he is the first candidate to accept a meeting with the leaders of the Colombian productive sector.

At this meeting they had the opportunity to listen to the proposals of Fico, who precisely presented his government plan to the public on the morning of April 6, and to present his concerns about the country: employment generation, structural reforms, the fight against corruption, among other issues.

According to Cabal, the unions found great coincidences with the idea of a country proposed to them by the former mayor of Medellín. Among them, he noted the proposals for economic and social public policies that deviate from the idea of an interventionist state.

For his part, candidate Federico Gutiérrez said at the end of the meeting that “all the discussions we have had today are fundamental and must take place within the framework of democracy and freedoms, which are the first ones we have to protect. In democracy and freedoms, the country will continue to grow economically, socially and close social gaps.”

Fico took the opportunity to throw more pullas at his strongest competitor in the race to the presidency, the candidate of the Historical Pact Gustavo Petro. He said that the central discussion does not lie between the conflicts of two people, but between two diametrically opposed economic, social and political models.

In addition, the candidate threw a curveball with the theme of using private pension funds to pay those without allowances now, an issue that has been controversial in the Petro campaign.

The candidate also suggested that this is not the time to take money from Colombia, but to continue investing in the country; especially, given the change in trend that would be favoring him in the polls.

Interestingly, when a journalist asked Gutiérrez about how he will deal with food insecurity in the country, which has increased with the pandemic and increases in product prices, he proposed a solution that does not usually combine well with non-interventionist states.

In addition to creating pancoger crops, strengthening road infrastructure and turning the country into a producer of agricultural inputs that meets the needs of Latin America in contingencies such as the current one — that the main fertilizer producer is being invaded — he suggested that “there must be an issue of direct urgent subsidy to families most vulnerable in the country”.

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