COLOMBIA
Analysts
Juan Carlos Echeverry
Former President of Ecopetrol, Finance Minister
Andrés Escobar Arango
Former Deputy Finance Minister
Mauricio Santa Maria
Former President of ANIF, Planning MinisterDatabanks
Recent Country Insights
The last peace-of-mind week ever?
COLOMBIA · In Brief · 04 Mar 2026
So far this century, leftist governments in Latin America have typically lasted between 10 and 18 years, with Chávez – Maduro - Rodriguez outlasting this average, reaching 26 years (Table 1). Hence, Gustavo Petro needs to demonstrate that he and his heir can emulate his peers and reach at least 8...
How come the fiscal balance improved in 2025?
COLOMBIA · In Brief · 01 Mar 2026
The Finance Ministry published fiscal data for Q4-2025 and for 2025 as a whole. The results could not be more discouraging. Even though the deficit went down from 6.7% of GDP in 2024 to 6.4% in 2025, a cursory look at the details behind this result (shown in Table 1) left us with nothing positive...
Handing out the pre-election pork
COLOMBIA · Report · 27 Feb 2026 · 1 response
Colombia began experimenting with wealth taxes at the beginning of this century. Wealth taxes have been criticized because they represent double income taxation: once when it’s produced, and again as assets. This may discourage savings and capital accumulation. But successive governments and mini...
Implications of a suspended minimum wage hike
COLOMBIA · In Brief · 13 Feb 2026
The State Council, one of Colombia’s high courts, issued a ruling on February 13th, suspending the effects of Decree 1469, issued by the Petro administration on December 29th of last year. In other words, the State Council has decided to suspend the 23% increase in the minimum wage. This ruling c...
Swallowing frogs, kissing the ring, and doing the responsible thing
COLOMBIA · Report · 06 Feb 2026 · 1 response
Why did Donald Trump want to meet with Gustavo Petro in Washington? Probably because it was cheaper to scold Petro face to face; to ask for real commitment and actions that comply with the U.S. agenda; and to bring him to the White House to kiss the ring, instead of intimidating him with the U.S....
Where to invest your pension savings
COLOMBIA · In Brief · 22 Jan 2026
The government published a draft decree that would limit mandatory pension fund (AFPs) investments abroad to 30% of their total portfolio across all risk profiles. Within three years, pension funds would have to reduce their maximum allocation to foreign assets to 35%, and within five years to th...
Extravagant minimum wage increase and its consequences
COLOMBIA · In Brief · 30 Dec 2025 · 5 responses
President Petro just announced a 23% increase in the minimum wage (MW) for 2026, setting it at COP $2 million including the compulsory transportation allowance. When all the non-wage costs are taken into account, the gross cost of an employee earning one minimum wage will be around COP 2.8 millio...
Brazilianization of Colombia
COLOMBIA · In Brief · 21 Dec 2025
Should the Central Bank start a new hiking phase for the intervention interest rate? Apparently, this is the prevailing view among many observers of monetary policy. Felipe Campos from Aliaza puts it succinctly: “The pressure is shifting to the Central Bank of Colombia, which is facing this situa...
Surprise surprise
COLOMBIA · In Brief · 21 Dec 2025 · 1 response
Acrimony will probably surface in the next meeting of market creators with Minfin’s Public Credit director. On Friday, December 19th, there was a secretive $6 billion financing operation with an unknown funding source at an interest rate of 13.5%. This caught both the market makers and the market...