Colombia

Economy - overview:
Colombia has experienced accelerating growth between 2002 and 2007, with expansion above 7% in 2007, chiefly due to advancements in domestic security, to rising commodity prices, and to President URIBE’s promarket economic policies. Colombia’s sustained growth helped reduce poverty by 20% and cut unemployment by 25% since 2002. Additionally, investor friendly reforms to Colombia’s hydrocarbon sector and the US-Colombia Trade Promotion Agreement (CTPA) negotiations have attracted record levels of foreign investment. Inequality, underemployment,and narcotrafficking remain significant challenges, and Colombia’s infrastructure requires significant updating in order to sustain expansion. Economic growth slipped in 2008 as a result of the global financial crisis and weakening demand for Colombia’s exports. In response, URIBE’s administration has cut capital controls, arranged for emergency credit lines from multilateral institutions, and promoted investment incentives such as Colombia’s modernized free trade zone mechanism, legal stability contracts, and new bilateral investment treaties and trade agreements. The government has also encouraged exporters to diversify their customer base away from the United States and Venezuela, Colombia’s largest trading partners. Nevertheless, the business sector continues to be concerned about the impact of a global recession on Colombia’s exports, as well as the approval of the CTPA, which is stalled in the US Congress.
GDP (purchasing power parity):
$399.4 billion (2008 est.)
$385.9 billion (2007)
$359 billion (2006)
GDP (official exchange rate):
$249.8 billion (2008 est.)
GDP - real growth rate:
3.5% (2008 est.)
7.5% (2007 est.)
6.9% (2006 est.)
GDP - per capita (PPP):
$8,900 (2008 est.)
$8,700 (2007 est.)
$8,200 (2006 est.)
GDP - composition by sector:
agriculture: 9.4%
industry: 36.6%
services: 54% (2008 est.)
Labor force:
21.3 million (2008 est.)
Labor force - by occupation:
agriculture: 22.4%
industry: 18.8%
services: 58.8% (2005 est.)
Unemployment rate:
11.8% (2008 est.)
Household income or consumption by percentage share:
lowest 10%: 7.9%
highest 10%: 34.3% (2004)
Distribution of family income - Gini index:
53.8 (2005)
Investment (gross fixed):
23.1% of GDP (2008 est.)
Budget:
revenues: $76.42 billion
expenditures: $78.49 billion; including capital expenditures of $NA (2008 est.)
Public debt:
48% of GDP (2008 est.)
Inflation rate (consumer prices):
7.7% (2008 est.)
Central bank discount rate:
9.5% (31 December 2008)
Commercial bank prime lending rate:
15.6% (31 December 2008)
Stock of money:
$21.81 billion (31 December 2007)
Stock of quasi money:
$27.25 billion (31 December 2007)
Stock of domestic credit:
$57.2 billion (31 December 2008)
Market value of publicly traded shares:
$87 billion (31 December 2008)
Agriculture - products:
coffee, cut flowers, bananas, rice, tobacco, corn, sugarcane, cocoa beans, oilseed, vegetables; forest products; shrimp
Industries:
textiles, food processing, oil, clothing and footwear, beverages, chemicals, cement; gold, coal, emeralds
Industrial production growth rate:
2.5% (2008 est.)
Electricity - production:
53.6 billion kWh (2007)
Electricity - consumption:
52.8 billion kWh (2007)
Electricity - exports:
876.7 million kWh (2007)
Electricity - imports:
38.4 million kWh (2007)
Oil - production:
588,000 bbl/day (2008 est.)
Oil - consumption:
267,000 bbl/day (2007 est.)
Oil - exports:
294,000 bbl/day (2008 est.)
Oil - imports:
12,480 bbl/day (2005)
Oil - proved reserves:
1.506 billion bbl (1 January 2008 est.)
Natural gas - production:
7.22 billion cu m (2006 est.)
Natural gas - consumption:
7.22 billion cu m (2006 est.)
Natural gas - exports:
0 cu m (2007 est.)
Natural gas - imports:
0 cu m (2007 est.)
Natural gas - proved reserves:
122.9 billion cu m (1 January 2008 est.)
Current account balance:
-$5.592 billion (2008 est.)
Exports:
$41.08 billion f.o.b. (2008 est.)
Exports - commodities:
petroleum, coffee, coal, nickel, emeralds, apparel, bananas, cut flowers
Exports - partners:
US 35.4%, Venezuela 17.4%, Ecuador 4.3% (2007)
Imports:
$38.88 billion f.o.b. (2008 est.)
Imports - commodities:
industrial equipment, transportation equipment, consumer goods, chemicals, paper products, fuels, electricity
Imports - partners:
US 26.2%, China 10.1%, Mexico 9.3%, Brazil 7.3%, Venezuela 4.2% (2007)
Reserves of foreign exchange and gold:
$23.66 billion (31 December 2008 est.)
Debt - external:
$41.68 billion (31 December 2008 est.)
Stock of direct foreign investment - at home:
$65.69 billion (2008 est.)
Stock of direct foreign investment - abroad:
$10.88 billion (2008 est.)
Exchange rates:
Colombian pesos (COP) per US dollar - 2,243.6 (2008), 2,013.8 (2007), 2,358.6 (2006), 2,320.75 (2005), 2,628.61 (2004)