"Colombia is ready to do business with Utah companies," Eduardo Munoz, the country's vice minister of foreign trade, said at a daylong seminar convened at the Salt Lake Chamber offices by the international office of the Governor's Office of Economic Development.

He is visiting a number of midsized U.S. states identified as priorities by the Colombian government - along with Kentucky, Washington, Arizona, Maryland and Ohio - emphasizing his country's increasingly stable and business-friendly atmosphere and encouraging American businesspeople to urge their congressional delegations to back a free-trade agreement between the two nations.

Thirty messages of support were generated for the legislation, which has been passed by Colombia's parliament but is hung up in Congress.

Munoz said Utah is an attractive partner because of its experience with international tourism.

But Colombia also is interested in an expanded relationship with companies producing metal products, transportation equipment and machinery, three sectors that account for half of Utah's $6.7 million in exports to Colombia last year.

About 20 Utahns participated in the seminar, during which officials from the U.S. State Department, the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative and the U.S. Chamber described the business climate in Colombia and ways Utah companies could navigate the bureaucracy and financial system.

Keith Roberts, director of business development for 4Life Research, an herbal supplement company in Sandy, said he hoped to learn more about Colombia's business environment so his company could expand upon the business it generated there through roughly 4,000 distributors.

Cecil Thompson of the Draper-based Utah Trade Finance Corp. was interested in making contacts on both ends of the trade spectrum - with Colombians who might need to raise capital to purchase imports from the Beehive State, and with Utah businesses searching for funding to build products for export.

mikeg@sltrib.com