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Analysis

Colombia improves economic operating enviornment, helping small businesses to grow
OBG
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Small businesses are the backbone of Colombia’s economy, but the recent economic slowdown has hit them particularly hard. As in many other countries, micro-, small and medium-sized enterprises (MSMEs) face a range of challenges that are far less binding for larger firms that benefit from economies of scale. According to Claudia Patricia da Cunha Tcachman, manager of dynamic ecosystems at…

Analysis

Corporate bonds
OBG
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Colombia’s corporate bond segment is an important component of the country’s capital market, despite its relatively small size and liquidity. The total amount outstanding at the end of 2016 was COP48.1tn ($14.4bn), or an estimated 5.5% of GDP. All corporate bond trading is registered on the Colombian Stock Exchange (Bolsa de Valores de Colombia, BVC). The average monthly traded volume…

Analysis

Foreign exchange
OBG
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Colombia has a floating exchange regime, which allows the currency to work as a shock absorber under local and global economic events. Transactions in the foreign exchange market are done through the Exchange Market Intermediaries (Intermediarios del Mercado Cambiario, IMC) and are registered in the SET-FX electronic trading platform. The Colombian peso spot can be traded same day on weekdays…

Analysis

Public debt
OBG
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The Colombian government debt segment is the largest in the country in terms of traded volume, and one of the largest and most liquid of its kind in Latin America – with a total amount outstanding of COP230trn ($69bn), or 26.3% of GDP, and an average monthly traded volume of COP100trn ($30bn) in 2016. Colombian government bonds, widely known as TES, are issued by the Ministry of Finance to…

Analysis

The bourse in Colombia works to diversify the derivatives market
OBG
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Derivatives are financial instruments that are derived from an underlying asset, such as a stock, an exchange index, bonds, currency, interest rates and raw materials, among other things. There are two categories of derivatives: standardised, which are traded through a stock exchange such as the Colombia Stock Exchange (Bolsa de Valores de Colombia, BVC); and non-standardised, which are tailor-made…

Analysis

Equity market
OBG
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The Colombian Stock Exchange (Bolsa de Valores de Colombia, BVC) was created in 2001 by merging the three independent stock exchanges that had been operating simultaneously since 1983. Market capitalisation increased consistently after its creation – helped by several state-owned companies going public – before reaching an all-time high of 70.9% of GDP in 2012; the steep drop in oil prices…

Analysis

Insurance penetration and density in Colombia set to rise with regional income levels
OBG
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Latin America has a population of more than 600m people and a combined GDP of over $5trn, and both have grown significantly since the turn of the century. Nonetheless, the region has been hit hard by the ebbing of the commodity super cycle in recent years, as well as still relatively sluggish global growth in the wake of the 2008-09 financial crisis. The region has been in outright recession…

Analysis

Renewable sources to bring clean energy to Colombia
OBG
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In recent years Latin American nations have enthusiastically embraced renewable energy sources, and a total of $16.5bn has been invested in the segment across the continent. In November 2016 Chile inaugurated the $343m, 196-MW El Romero solar power plant, which provides enough power to fuel a city of 1m people; while Costa Rica ran on entirely clean energy for seven months in 2016. Yet while…

Analysis

Offshore exploration benefits natural gas exports in Colombia
OBG
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In November 2016 Colombia received its first import of liquefied natural gas (LNG) at the Sociedad Portuaria El Cayao (SPEC) terminal in Cartagena. The cargo, sourced from Trinidad and Tobago’s Atlantic LNG facility, was delivered by a floating storage regasification unit (FSRU) owned by Norwegian firm Höegh Grace. A year after a serious energy shortage due to weak hydroelectric production,…

Analysis

Exploration in Colombia leads to a number of new discoveries and mines
OBG
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After delays and several false starts, the Colombian gold mining segment gained momentum in 2016 with the awarding of environmental permits for four gold mines. This follows the March 2015 permit given to Canada-based Red Eagle Mining, which, little more than a year later, became the first medium-sized gold mine to enter into production in Colombia for 50 years. When these four projects enter…