President Correa says Ecuador shining example of how to treat foreigners

euractiv.com/ By José Manuel Sanz Mingote | euroefe.es | Translated By Samuel Morgan

The head of state and government explained that “it’s the same story in Ecuador. We host the most refugees of anyone in Latin America, due to the Colombian conflict, and we are an example to the rest of the world”.

“While elsewhere refugees are stuck in shelters and isolated from society, in Ecuador they are perfectly integrated and have access to all the rights that are afforded,” Correa added, citing a newly adopted law that guarantees foreigners these very rights.

The president insisted that “Spain and Ecuador are setting a global example of how to treat foreigners that wish to reside in our countries, by treating human mobility as a fundamental right.”

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The Ecuadorian head of state, who will leave office in May after a decade in the job, advised his eventual successor to “keep betting on what is most important: human talent”.

“Countries that develop and advance aren’t those that have oil reserves or vast tracks of territory, it’s those with human talent. That’s what we have nurtured in these ten years. If I had to say one thing it would be this: keep cultivating that talent.”

He acknowledged that during a decade of holding the highest political office in the land that he might have made mistakes but insisted that “the fundamental decisions were the correct ones”.

On investment, Correa stressed that “serious investors are not the ones that go to countries that are good students of the International Monetary Fund, because they are smart enough to know that the systems of the IMF and World Bank mean these countries are likely to collapse.”

Instead, investors “go where the rules of the game are clear, like in Ecuador. Where there is honest government, like in Ecuador. Where projects are profitable, like in Ecuador”, he added.

The outgoing president also stated that he believes in trade but not in foolish openness, explaining that advocates of free trade “torture historical data in order to show that it has been the vector for development, yet there is no greater lie”. Read Article