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The Economy of Colombia

Colombian Economy

Colombia's map

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:

GDP - real growth rate: 3.5% (2008 est.) 7.5% (2007 est.) 6.9% (2006 est.)

GDP - per capita:

GDP - composition by sector: agriculture: 9.4% industry: 36.6% services: 54% (2008 est.)

Population below poverty line:

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)

Inflation rate (consumer prices):

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.)

Budget: revenues: $76.42 billion expenditures: $78.49 billion; including capital expenditures of $NA (2008 est.)

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 - production by source:

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.)

Agriculture - products: coffee, cut flowers, bananas, rice, tobacco, corn, sugarcane, cocoa beans, oilseed, vegetables; forest products; shrimp

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)

Debt - external: $41.68 billion (31 December 2008 est.)

Economic aid - recipient:

Currency:

Currency code:

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)

Fiscal year: