CARACAS (Reuters) -&nbsp;Venezuela&nbsp;and&nbsp;Colombia&nbsp;will&nbsp;fully&nbsp;reopen&nbsp;their&nbsp;shared&nbsp;border&nbsp;on January 1 to allow passage of cargo&nbsp;and&nbsp;passenger transport via the cross-border&nbsp;Tienditas bridge,&nbsp;Colombia&nbsp;Migration said in a statement on Saturday.
The South American countries already&nbsp;reopened in September their&nbsp;border&nbsp;crossing in the Tachira state, in western&nbsp;Venezuela, after political ties strengthened under&nbsp;Colombia's new president, Gustavo Petro.
Petro&nbsp;and&nbsp;his&nbsp;Venezuelan counterpart, Nicolas Maduro, appointed ambassadors in Caracas&nbsp;and&nbsp;Bogota, respectively.
Colombian authorities have said since September that the&nbsp;reopening of the&nbsp;shared&nbsp;2,200 kilometers (1,367 miles)&nbsp;border&nbsp;between the two countries would be progressive.
Last week,&nbsp;Venezuelan government officials were supervising the infrastructure of the Tienditas bridge.
"We completely&nbsp;reopen&nbsp;the&nbsp;border&nbsp;between our countries in order to guarantee the movement of cargo&nbsp;and&nbsp;passengers,&nbsp;and&nbsp;to promote trade&nbsp;and&nbsp;tourism in&nbsp;Colombia&nbsp;and&nbsp;Venezuela, not only by land&nbsp;but also by air&nbsp;and&nbsp;river", said&nbsp;Colombia's Minister of Transport Guillermo Reyes Gonzalez.
Elsewhere, people&nbsp;and&nbsp;cargo can already cross the&nbsp;border&nbsp;via two bridges in Tachira as well as the western Zulia state. Flights between the capitals Caracas&nbsp;and&nbsp;Bogota resumed in November.
The commercial exchange between the two countries is worth around $580 million, according to official data from&nbsp;Colombia.
&nbsp;
(Reporting by Mayela Armas; editing by Diane Craft)

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Venezuela and Colombia fully reopen shared border