Returning to London

Returning to London three decades after his first posting, His Excellency Francisco Alberto Lima Mena finds both the city and his own country transformed. Today, as Ambassador of El Salvador to the United Kingdom, he arrives at a moment when El Salvador is seeking to present itself to the world as a transformed nation, through trade, infrastructure investment, regional integration and renewed economic confidence.

His memories of the capital stretch back more than 30 years, when he first lived in the UK as both a student and a junior diplomat. At the time, the Salvadoran Embassy operated from a smaller premises, and the official residence was in Swiss Cottage — then considered far from central London. “Travelling from the Embassy to the Residence took about 10 to 15 minutes max,” he recalls. “Today, that same journey could easily take an hour.”

“Despite all these changes,” he reflects, “I find that the diplomatic community is keeping up with its magnificent traditions to the Court of St James’s. London is still a beautiful city that offers a lot. I say that if you get bored in London, you are probably bored of life already. But that’s certainly not possible as a diplomat!”

Yet Ambassador Lima Mena’s ties to diplomacy run much deeper than his own career. He is a diplomat continuing a multi-generational family tradition of public service to El Salvador, in which his great-grandfather, grandfather, father, and uncle all served the country at the highest levels. When he presented his credentials to King Charles III, he carried with him a photograph of his great-grandfather, former Salvadoran President Rafael Zaldívar, who also served as El Salvador’s Minister Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary to the Court of Her Majesty Queen Victoria, strengthening the bilateral relationship during the expansion of El Salvador’s coffee and sugar exports to the UK.

His great-uncle Dr Francisco Lima served as El Salvador’s Ambassador to Washington before becoming Minister of Finance and co-founder of the Salvadoran Coffee Association, while his uncle Dr Francisco Roberto Lima Rivera also served as Ambassador to Washington before becoming Vice President of El Salvador. Diplomacy, it seems, is woven into the family’s history.

So too is coffee. “My mother’s family comes from the coffee sector,” he says. “I say that coffee runs in my blood. On my mother’s side, we are the fifth generation of coffee growers in El Salvador. It’s a beautiful business, and I’m proud to work with the land.” He adds, “I owe my genetics to coffee and my father’s family to diplomacy. I come from a family of citizens throughout the generations who have always wanted the best for our country.”

That heritage remains highly relevant to his present role. Alongside bilateral relations with the UK and Ireland, the Embassy oversees El Salvador’s engagement with the International Coffee Organisation, the International Sugar Organisation, and the International Maritime Organisation.

Regional Integration and Economic Diplomacy

Before returning to London, Ambassador Lima Mena served from 2021 to 2025 as Secretary General of the Secretariat for Central American Economic Integration (SIECA), where he oversaw the organisation’s economic integration agenda.

The institution administers trade and customs integration across six Central American economies, facilitating the movement of goods through increasingly sophisticated digital systems.

“For goods to move from Guatemala, for example, to El Salvador, from El Salvador to Costa Rica, and so on, they go through our digital platform hub in the Secretariat,” he explains. “The Secretariat administers close to US$16 billion in trade per year for the region. It’s an innovative system, with its own trade dispute settlement mechanism. The Central American regional integration process started before the European Union began its economic integration. Nonetheless, Europe has been able to move forward at a different speed, but we are getting there.”

His earlier diplomatic career also included a lengthy tenure in Geneva as Ambassador and Permanent Representative to both the World Trade Organisation (WTO) and the World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO) during a critical phase in multilateral trade negotiations. “It was an interesting time for the WTO, as we were negotiating the Doha Agreements, with the aim to further liberalise the trade of goods and services, both in the agricultural and industrial fields,” he recalls.

Among the major achievements of that period was the conclusion of the Trade Facilitation Agreement, designed to simplify customs procedures and improve the movement of goods internationally. “We were focusing on expedited shipments, importation to countries, and how we all agree minimum standards of doing business between countries in a facilitated way,” he recalls.

Alongside trade negotiations, he also worked extensively on intellectual property frameworks at WIPO, including traditional knowledge protections and the Patent Cooperation Treaty. “These were exciting, but technical times,” he reflects.

Strengthening UK–El Salvador Relations

As Ambassador in London, his priorities are firmly centred on trade, investment and infrastructure development.

El Salvador and the UK currently trade under the UK–Central America Association Agreement, which entered into force after Brexit.

“This association agreement was negotiated with a regional perspective from the Central American side,” Ambassador Lima Mena explains. “As small countries, we are adding some competitiveness by having the best of every single Central American country into a determined product, and that product, once finished, can be exported to the UK with a single group of origin that will give this product the advantages of free trade.”

While the agreement provides significant opportunities, he believes its potential remains underutilised. “The numbers of goods travelling from Central America to the UK could be improved, and I think the association agreement is the perfect tool for this,” he says.

Infrastructure investment has become another major focus of bilateral engagement. The Ambassador points to recent UK participation in a major construction project as an encouraging sign of growing confidence in El Salvador’s economy. “Recently, a UK company won the public tender for the construction of a ring road in our capital city San Salvador,” he says. “We are satisfied that British investment is beginning to flow into El Salvador’s hard infrastructure, which is essential to unlocking El Salvador’s full economic potential.”

He also identifies the expansion of El Salvador’s energy matrix as a strategic priority and sees the UK’s expertise in advanced energy technologies as a valuable partner in that journey.

At the same time, the Embassy remains focused on supporting Salvadoran nationals living in Britain and promoting premium Salvadoran coffee exports to discerning UK consumers increasingly interested in specialty Arabica varieties.

“Today I’m Representing a New El Salvador”

Perhaps the strongest theme running through Ambassador Lima Mena’s remarks is his conviction that El Salvador has undergone a profound national transformation.

“El Salvador is currently undergoing significant changes,” he says. “Today I’m representing a new El Salvador, and our civil war has disappeared. It has moved from being the most violent country in the Western Hemisphere to become the safest country in the Western Hemisphere.”

He believes the country’s improved security environment is already reshaping international perceptions and investor confidence.

“With the security issue under control, investors are more at ease doing business in our country,” he says. “As a Salvadoran who has lived through all these different stages of civil war, guerrilla war and peace accords, it’s just incredible to see how our country is flourishing.”

Looking ahead, he hopes international partners will view El Salvador as an emerging regional opportunity. “I would like the international community to understand that El Salvador is a country being led by a person and government from the perspective of a new generation.”

“So, come to visit El Salvador. It’s a beautiful country in a beautiful region.”

Lessons from the Road

Among the defining experiences of his career, Ambassador Lima Mena highlights an unusual decision taken during his tenure at SIECA: personally driving the length of Central America from Guatemala to Panama to observe regional trade routes and border crossings firsthand.

“During this week, I got to understand and experience all the challenges and advantages at the different border posts throughout the region,” he says. “Feeling the heat with the people working along the route was important for me to understand the proper conditions for trade to flow efficiently,” he explains.

A year and a half later, he repeated the journey in reverse, witnessing tangible improvements that had resulted from reforms implemented during his tenure.

The experience reinforced his belief in practical diplomacy and direct accessibility. “I’m a firm believer in zero red tape and being accessible,” he says. “Small changes can have big impacts in doing business and making trade flow.”

For Ambassador Lima Mena, regional integration remains central to Central America’s future competitiveness. “El Salvador is a small country, with a small economy when compared to the rest of the world,” he notes. “Investors are far more interested in a 53 million consumer market, which is what Central America represents.”

Away from official duties, Ambassador Lima Mena is joined in London by his wife, Doña Norma Castellanos de Lima, a lawyer and grandniece of Colonel Arturo Castellanos — honoured as Righteous Among the Nations for his role in saving thousands of lives during the Second World War. Their son is currently studying at the Universidad de Navarra in Pamplona, Spain. Outside his diplomatic responsibilities, the Ambassador enjoys spending time close to the water, listening to music, walking his dogs, and maintaining a deep connection to the land — a passion rooted in his family’s generations-long tradition of coffee growing in El Salvador.

For a diplomat shaped by both coffee plantations and multilateral negotiations, London marks not simply a return, but a new chapter in presenting El Salvador to the world.