An analysis published by Robin Brooks, chief economist at the Institute of International Finance (IIF), showed that Colombia’s real Gross Domestic Product (GDP) grew 36% since 2012.
Thus, the country is positioned as a leader in the region, surpassing the growth of Peru (34%), Chile (27%), Mexico (13%), Argentina (3%) and Brazil (0%) in the last decade.
Just last year Colombia’s GDP grew 10.6% annually and, in fact, according to forecasts by the International Monetary Fund (IMF), this year it would achieve a figure of 5.8%, exceeding the projections of countries such as Spain (4.8%), China (4.4%) and Canada ( 3.9%).
Real GDP in Latin America: 2012 – 2022
1. Colombia (pink): +36%
2. Peru (dots): +34%
3. Chile (red): +27%
4. Mexico (orange): +13%
5. Argentina (black): +3%
6. Brazil (blue): 0%With @IifPaola, @mcastellano44 & @SergiLanauIIF pic.twitter.com/Haz4H3CKdl
— Robin Brooks (@RobinBrooksIIF) April 30, 2022
For Latin America, the multilateral entity slightly raised its growth forecast for this year, from 2.4% to 2.5%, but reduced the projection for 2023, also to 2.5% from 2.6%.
Latin America will be the region with the lowest growth in 2022, according to the agency. The IMF forecasts that the euro zone will grow 2.8% this year, despite the scope of the war in Eastern Europe, and the advanced economies, as a whole, will have a growth of 3.3%.
Several experts have already assured that one of the risks of global growth is inflation. IMF figures indicate that the Consumer Price Index (CPI) in the five main economies of Latin America, including Colombia, is the highest in 15 years, following the impacts of the pandemic and the crisis in Ukraine due to the Russian invasion.
The conflict in Eastern Europe aggravated inflation in the region, which had already been accelerating in Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Mexico and Peru in 2021, mainly due to the increase in food and energy prices, monetary policy and the adjustment of wages, as well as the recovery of demand following the pandemic.
According to the projections of the Monetary Fund, Colombia will be the third economy in the region with the highest inflation this year, behind Brazil and Paraguay, without taking into account Venezuela and Argentina, which already had high inflationary pressures even before the arrival of covid-19.
For next year, the agency expects inflation in Colombia to be one of the most moderate in Latin America and expects it to slow down to 4.2%. The countries where inflation will be most controlled will be in Argentina, Paraguay and then Colombia, which will no longer be one of the economies with the highest inflation.
Another of Colombia’s challenges this year is to continue recovering jobs, since more than five million jobs were lost in Colombia during the pandemic.
“It is still worrying to see that although the Colombian economy has already exceeded its pre-pandemic levels and today operates above that, the labor market still has significant gaps to close,” said Jackeline Piraján, economist at Scotiabank Colpatria.
