UrduPoint | 15 October 2020

French-Colombian investment treaty comes into force to boost virus-battered economies

by Mohammad Ali

MOSCOW (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 15th October, 2020) The agreement for the reciprocal promotion and protection of investments between France and Colombia has entered into force, the French Foreign Ministry said on Thursday, adding that the deal is especially important at the time of the pandemic-related economic crisis.

"The entry into force of the agreement comes in a difficult economic situation, where the development of cross-flows of foreign direct investment is of great importance in a context of economic recovery, both in France and Colombia after the Covid-19 pandemic," the statement read.

The treaty was signed on July 10, 2014 in the Colombian capital of Bogota, and ratified by the French parliament in 2016 and the Colombian congress a year later. In 2019, at the initiative of the Colombian constitutional court, Bogota revived the issue in an interpretive declaration on the agreement to receive clarifications on some of its provisions.

After the declaration was signed on August 5, 2020, the treaty became legally binding on Wednesday.

According to the statement, the interpretive declaration states that the agreement does not allow intervention in public policies, whose purposes are to undertake preventive and protective measures in the face of climate change and emergency situations like the COVID-19 pandemic.

The French Foreign Ministry also specified that Paris and Bogota will consult each other regarding implementation of the treaty and continue joint efforts to reshape "investor-state dispute resolution mechanisms" on multilateral level.