COLOMBIA’S government will propose legislation aimed at overhauling the health sector and will pursue changes to labour laws, President Gustavo Petro said on Saturday as he inaugurated a new session of congress.

Mr Petro, Colombia’s first left-wing president, has pushed an ambitious set of economic changes that includes changing the pension system, raising the minimum wage and redistributing land to farmers affected by Colombia’s armed conflict.

He managed to get the minimum wage boosted last year and his pension plan approved by congress earlier this year, but he has struggled to persuade legislators to adopt his ideas on labour laws and the health system.