Colombia’s economy has the potential to grow; but still dependent on the extractive industry: IDB

The economy of Colombia It has a high potential to grow driven by agriculture, tourism and the productive chain, but it will continue to depend on the extraction of hydrocarbons and mining, said a senior official of the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB).

The Government of President Gustavo Petro seeks to initiate a transition to leave economic and energy dependence on oil and coal, the products that generate the highest income for the fourth largest economy in Latin America due to exports, taxes and royalties.

The leftist president intends to increase agricultural production in the country of 50 million inhabitants to increase food production by giving land to poor peasants and turn tourism into a generator of foreign currency and employment.

“The study does not propose leaving these Extractive industries“, the manager of the IDB’s Andean Countries, Tomás Bermúdez, told journalists at the presentation of the report “New Horizons of Productive Transformation in the Andean Region.”

“What we are proposing is a conversation that has to start today to be able to transition in the coming years towards an economy that is much more diverse, which is going to have to be financed and leveraged with what Colombia produces today, precisely because they are hydrocarbons. and mining,” he said.

Bermúdez said that Colombia has to begin the process of transforming its productive matrix to achieve a different export offer without affecting its economic growth in the future.

The official affirmed that the agribusiness sector showed its resilience during the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020 when it grew 2% despite the fact that the Colombian economy contracted 6.8 percent.

The services sector has the potential to contribute an additional 1.7 million jobs by 2050 in Colombia, of which 90,000 would be in the modern services sector, such as computer programming, according to the study.

Additionally, the report assured that the decarbonization process has the potential to increase the demand for metals such as copper, nickel and graphite, so further exploration for these metals in Colombia would be beneficial.

According to government estimates, the Colombian economy it would have grown 8.2% in 2022 and this year it would slow to 1.3 percent.