NEWS FLASH

LIVE WEBINAR TODAY - CAUCASUS AND CENTRAL ASIA: ECONOMIC UPSWINGS AND P...

No one falls from grace halfway
COLOMBIA · Report · 03 Nov 2023

In Latin American national elections today, the opposition has an 80% chance of winning, according to a recent statistical analysis. After the 2015 commodities crisis, and especially after the COVID pandemic, opposition parties won almost four of every five elections in the region. We are seeing ...

Petro’s make-or-break second year
COLOMBIA · Report · 29 Sep 2023 · 1 response

What should we expect for Gustavo Petro’s second year? We think this phase will depend upon 1) what happens in the October 29th mayoral and gubernatorial races; 2) whether the economy definitively succumbs to recession, as the Central Bank projects, or rebounds, as private analysts expect; and 3)...

Congress approves 2024 budget number, ignoring CARF warning
COLOMBIA · In Brief · 14 Sep 2023 · 1 response

On September 13, the economic committees of Congress approved the size of the 2024 budget at COP 502.6 trillion (29.6% of GDP), leaving the amount submitted by the Finance Ministry back in July unchanged. From now until mid October, the plenaries of the House and the Senate will continue to discu...

Growth deceleration and fiscal headaches
COLOMBIA · Report · 01 Sep 2023 · 1 response

The three main healthcare insurers wrote a letter to the Minister of Health, and made it public, claiming that they see severe difficulties for their short-term financial viability. The argued that the money transferred by the system was insufficient to meet their costs; that the distribution of ...

Petro's son claims illegal funding in presidential campaign; now what?
COLOMBIA · In Brief · 04 Aug 2023

Yesterday, in Nicolás Petro's (NP) trial, the prosecutor said that NP claims that illegal funding reached his father Gustavo Petro's presidential campaign.Could this process end up in Petro's being removed from office?We are not constitutional lawyers, but after doing some consultation, the next ...

New Mining and Energy Minister could just be more of the same
COLOMBIA · In Brief · 03 Aug 2023 · 1 response

President Petro has appointed Andrés Camacho as the new Mining and Energy Minister. He replaces Irene Vélez, forced to resign after allegedly abusing her position as Minister to bypass a requirement to let her son leave the country on a trip abroad; Ms. Vélez was heavily criticized throughout her...

Does Colombia need to be a superpower in anything?
COLOMBIA · Report · 26 Jul 2023

Economic downturn has implications for the health of supervised credit institutions. Delinquency ratios are on the rise, already resulting in higher provisions, and likely to keep doing so. Profits of some lenders have been affected, especially those more focused on consumer lending; these losses...

Slide Presentation - Colombia: Muddy waters
COLOMBIA · Report · 23 Jun 2023 · 1 response

Get insight into Colombia's fiscal policy, economic activity and political environment with a presentation from Juan Carlos Echeverry and Andres Escobar.

The government of (incessant) change
COLOMBIA · In Brief · 05 Jun 2023 · 1 response

August 1994, right after Ernesto Samper’s inauguration as the new president of Colombia. His competitor, Andres Pastrana made public some tapes incriminating Samper’s campaign for allegedly having received $6 million from narcotraffickers to finance his campaign. 2023, 10 months after Petro’s ina...

Who is the bull, and who the matador?
COLOMBIA · Report · 26 May 2023

Most political and technical observers of Congress found the approval of the president’s healthcare reform initiative in the first committee of the House of Representatives disconcerting. The key political parties had expressed deep objections, and initially claimed they’d refuse to support it. B...

Courting Chaos
COLOMBIA · In Brief · 10 May 2023 · 2 responses

It is difficult to follow the dynamics of the Petro administration to try to find a common thread between the utterances and actions of its ministers. One day the president asks for COP 150 trillion from primary monetary issuance for victims of internal conflict; shortly after, from the balcony o...

When people feel poor, they blame their President
COLOMBIA · Report · 28 Apr 2023 · 2 responses

The results of Dane’s 2022 Quality of Life Survey on perceived poverty should worry the government. Perceived poverty jumped from 37.9% in 2019 to a startling 46.7% in 2021, and then rose, yet again, to 50.6% in 2022. This last 4 pp increase leaves no doubt about families’ perception that inflati...

Webinar replay: Colombia political update
COLOMBIA · Report · 28 Apr 2023

Visit the our calendar page to watch our webinar featuring Juan Carlos Echeverry and Andres Escobar discussing Colombia's cabinet changes, the ousting of Finance Minister Jose Antonio Ocampo and the implications and impact on Colombia's outlook.

Ocampo is leaving. Big challenges ahead for Bonilla
COLOMBIA · In Brief · 26 Apr 2023

President Petro reshuffled his cabinet and sacked 7 ministers (finance, agriculture, interior, health, science, IT & telecoms, transport). The most salient decision was to sack the Finance Minister (a total surprise to everybody, including Ocampo himself), who was acting as a living corset to the...

The unwritten Law of Governability
COLOMBIA · In Brief · 26 Apr 2023

Typically, at the beginning of a Colombian government, congressmen tell the ministers who still don’t know it, about the way things are handled vis-à-vis Government in that solemn bastion of representative democracy, National Congress. Namely, an iron law that has survived decades, and yet it isn...