to the center and also will come columbia's minister for affairs. the minister of trade. colombia's ambassador to the united states. the minister of finance. and i am told there are several ambassadors in our group. we welcome them here. i have been informed that the former ambassador is here. we are delighted to have hurt. a former congressman is also expected to be here. we welcome all of our distinguished guests and of course the president. @@@@@@@@@ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @

over 30,000 paramilitary fighters, severed more than 10,000 defections and numerous setbacks at the hands of government forces, including the rescue of three united states citizens and several other hostages nearly a year ago. 2006, the colombian people demonstrated their support by be

electing the president by an impressive 62% margin. his high public approval rating remains the envy of politicians across the world. all of this is coincided with the strengthening of bilateral relationships. while columbia continues to face significant challenges, they are challenges that washington and they can overcome. under presidents bill clinton and george bush, the bilateral late shipping the united states and colombia has grown in lead some bounds. we expect this expectation will continue. the president's tenure as president caps a distinguished

career in public service. 1976, he served as the head of the real-estate office of the public works department. he went on to serve as secretary general for the labor ministry. two heralded terms as senator and governor. he holds a law degree from the university as well as a postgraduate degree from harvard and is an associate professor at oxford university. he is married, has two sons. mr. president, thank you for coming to the wilson center and we look forward to your comments. after he speaks, there will be an opportunity for questions and answers. [applause]

>> my government, ambassadors, distinguished ladies and gentlemen, this is a great honor for my colleagues in for me to be here this morning in this very important think-tank. i want to express my gratitude for this invitation. every day, by a repeat before my fellow citizens one very simple frame.

i do my best to repeat, morning by morning, evening by evening, because i understand that every government has a duty to convince the fellow citizens of the necessity to have important and at the same time simple goals. the goal we are looking for in columbia is to convert columbia into a country with the highest level of confidence. confidence is leading our country. when we support confidence, -- we support confidence on three pillars. investment with social responsibility, and social

cohesion. we concede that the only way for a country such as the case as columbia to advance in overcoming poverty, including a civil economy with a better income distribution is through prosperity. prosperity depends, in the case of columbia, on security and on investment. security with democratic values, investment with social responsibility. about security, i want not to make you feel fed up with these numbers this morning. we have improved, but we need to

improve much more. we accept august we have made and we of -- we accept the progress that we have made and we accept that we need to do much more. i want to explain some non tangible resources that we have got in our policy of democratic security. we have recovered two monopolies. we have recovered a state monopoly. we have dismantled an organization that was chosen in colombia to [unintelligible] today, --

we have criminals that participate in drug trafficking and guerrillas. in some areas of the country, they are together. they churn the profits of trafficking. they fight, one to the other, in a very mafioso relationship. when they are friends and when they are enemies, they have a mafia serve relationship. they fight because they want tte profits of trafficking.

but what is important to highlight this morning is that our government has recovered for the state and for the monopoly to fight criminals. secondly, we have recovered the state monopoly to exercise justice. during many years of the country, the justice administration is total independent from the exit -- from the executive branch. in many areas of the country, general prosecutors, judges, they have been replaced by a terrorist guerrillas, some in these organizations.

they try to keep legal exercise justice, -- they try to exercise its legal justillegal justice. prior to this, colombians were afraid to propose or denounce. today, colombians have recovered confidence to denounce. colombians denounce every kind. we have many more announcements that prior to this administration. my government is open and receptive. the minister of defense, the

high command of the police, the military, and i as president, quite often we go on the beat to receive questions, claims, blames from the epoplpeople involving our policemen and human rights. we do our best to make clear every case. i consider this a very unique case in the world. i want to share this experience with you. colombians have recovered confidence. there was a growing trend of fellow citizenswho were looking to provide themself with

security by their own means. today, colombianare more likely to resort to institutions and looking for the provision of security. we have advanced in this regard. victim's prior to this policy, victims did not bring their claims because they found it was useless and they were afraid. today, we have more than 220,000 victims who have come to the registration office and are now waiting for an operation.

we have advanced a lot in the process to repair the victim s. this year alone, my government has grown to expand $100 million to begin the process to repair the victims. this is what i call monetary component of operation. i understand it is impossible to give a complete operation, but i understand that any effort to repair victims is a good step in the right direction to prevent our people from hating, to create conditions for total

reconciliation in our country. many countries in latin america face challenges in security and adopted marshall legislation to confront this problem. columbia has faced the most dangerous challenge, the most dangerous because our terrorist groups have been [unintelligible] given that they are the owners of narcotics trafficking businesses. they are autonomous, they do not need funds from the international community. our government@@@@@@@ @ @ @ @ @'

overseas because they are afraid to live in columbia. because of our administration, they have come back to colombia.

they in joy all of the freedoms and they enjoy all of the protection. we have 10,000 colombians with individual protection provided by the government. the ministry of finance needs to spend $45 million to budget this individual protection. in the economy, what do we mean by social responsibility? social responsibility is transparency and the relationship between the government and investors.

transparency in taxes, contracts, in negotiations, conciliation some of legal disputes -- transparency. my government discusses in public audiences. we have advanced a lot in this regard. social responsibility requires a great effort from the government to make investors, to respond positively to requirements from the community. for instance, in regions -- [unintelligible] we have seen confrontations,

political confrontations between investors and the community. we have not disregard the community's claims and we have not created obstacles for investors. what we have done is to call both parties into advancing that dialogue for creating conditions foto move for with their activities and that the same time be receptive to answer the expectations of the community. the country is full of examples of the outcome of this

dialogue my government has promoted. social responsibility [unintelligible] columbia rejects why capitalism , untamed capitalism, and columbia rejects social class hatred. every day, we look for fraternity and the relationships between employers and workers. socialist possibility -- social responsibility is to realize that capital is a question for social wealth not for speculation. my country and our government have given investors of of the guarantees to establish and

prosper in columbia. under the condition of social responsibility. we do not share the ideal of hostility regarding investors. we are totally friendly with investors. we need investment in colombia. the only way for my country to prosper and overcome poverty and to include in this [unintelligible] the rate of embezzlement has passed from our administration -- investment has gone up to 28%. during this year, in the middle of this economic crisis, during the first quarter, we had an investment rate of 25%.

falling direct investment, it was in between $500 million, $1 billion, up $1.5 billion. during the last years, we had 6.5, $10,000,000,000.563999176. -- we had more than $10 billion. this year, we have more than $3 billion. we have had an increase of 16%. in the comparison with international trade, our economy has performed this year comparatively well in the

capacity to attract foreign direct investment. we have introduced many structural settlor reforms but every day we consider that we need to adjust our framework to advance with new reforms. it is necessary to have a clear goal. what do you want to reach? where is the place you want your country to arrive in? at the same time, to introduce the adjustments. we say, we refuse [unintelligible] we share the idea of introducing adjustments every day within the line, looking for the big goal. so far, we have reformed 4727

state agencies. you cannot imagine how difficult it was banned. we introduced one labor reform and the possibility for the private sector to capitalize the estate on corp.s. you don't imagine how difficult it was. not because of technical difficulties but because of political obstacles. in this environment. we have advanced a lot. we have restructured many the state institutions.

if you visit our capital city, you see that we have transformed the public's hospitals that used to be long to the national agency for social security. there were a disaster prior to this administration. now with the reform, they have improved a lot. now we have many reforms for the upcoming months. one is going on in congress. a new role to introduce much more speed in the provision of justice and the administration. we are in the process to create consensus between independent

justice and administration, for congress to finally approved the reform. in the coming three weeks, my government is to -- my government is going to issue a decree to produce a deeply structured national agency of intelligence to cure this agency of its problems. i hope that my fellow citizens and the international community, we see these decrees. we continue in the process of introducing reforms in my country. i want to refer only to some aspects in a location.

[unintelligible] 57% to 78%, the middle of education. prior to this administration, we had less than 1 million university students. today, we are reaching 1,700,000. before, we lend money to 60,000 university students. today, we have almost 300,000 borrowers. we have advanced a lot in vocational training. this vocational institution is funded by a tax on payrolls of

two points, paid by employers. this year, that institutions should provide vocational training for 6 million colombians, and this institution is working in foreign countries to assist them in this field. this institution now reaches 1 million colombians and students to learn english as a second language through the internet. we are doing our best to overcome problems. my country has advanced a lot in childhood nutrition but we lag behind in education for those under 6. in many areas of the country, because of the advances in education, [unintelligible]

we lag behind in infrastructure. in the main cities, we have advanced a lot in connectivity but not yet in rural communities. by august of next year, the country will have connectivity for 80% of total students in state schools. columbia has completed 41 million people with health insurance. i recognize that we have problems. [unintelligible]

my government -- our country has to raisce. we have 400 hospitals. distinguished friends, we have made progress but we recognize that we have much more to do. colombians suffer a rate of poverty close to 60%. today, we are in between 37% and 43%, but the rate of social investment of military resources has increased a lot. today, 2,700,000 poor