Forget Colombia’s past 

Colombia is now a top destination for investment. The security problems of the 1990s and early 2000s kept foreigners away and investment artificially low. That has changed and Colombia is a fast emerging market – attracting 15 billion dollars of Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) last year.

Why Colombia?

Colombia is part of the CIVET group of countries – the next growth economies after the BRIC nations. For EFT investors Colombia has even outperformed BRIC countries over the last two years.

Colombia has a young population, with a well educated and large middle-class.

Standard and Poor’s and Moody’s have both awarded Colombia investor grade credit rating.

The economy has continued on a sustained growth path with a decade average annual increase of over 4%. In 2011 Colombia’s economy grew by 5.9%. Per Capita GDP has doubled in the last ten years.

Colombia has never defaulted on its debt, inflation is low, and stable, and the Santos government has written tight fiscal responsibility rules into the constitution. The World Bank considers Colombia a safer financial bet than some of the world’s largest economies – including France’s.

Imports and exports 

Colombia’s FDI in 2011 was over 15 billion dollars – this is 50% increase on the FDI registered in 2010.

Colombia is perhaps most famous for being the top

exporter of coffee. Traditional markets also include flowers, textiles and bananas. It is also gold rich and is the largest exporter of emeralds.

Following pro-business policies pursued by the Colombian government, the country is now Latin America’s fourth largest oil producer, and the world’s fifth largest coal exporter. Colombia is the US’s third largest oil supplier.

The top three investor countries between 2000 and 2010, were, USA, the United Kingdom, and Spain.

Colombia has free trade agreements with 48 countries close to completion or already in force. This gives the country preferential access to over 1,500 million consumers. Agreements with Switzerland and Canada came into force last year. The FTA with the US has been agreed while the Colombia EU FTA is awaiting sign-off from the nation state’s governments. The activation of these two agreements will accelerate exponentially Colombia’s growth.

The democratic security, and liberal economic policies pursued by former president, Alvaro Uribe during his eight years in power (2002-2010) have transformed the image of the country abroad creating not only a safe but also a profitable place to invest.

This website will report on important economic and investment stories – as it believes that economics and politics go hand-in-hand. Keep coming back to find out the latest information.