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COUNTRY INSIGHTS

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...

An unwarranted emergency
COLOMBIA · In Brief · 21 Dec 2025

During the press conference convened to announce the Central Bank’s Board decision to keep its policy rate unchanged at 9.25%, something quite unusual happened. Once governor Villar read the press statement agreed upon by the board members, finance minister Avila intervened not to comment the gov...

Don’t be fooled
COLOMBIA · Report · 19 Dec 2025

The Petro administration will surely trumpet new CARF announcements outlining better-than-expected 2025 fiscal results. The 2025 national central government deficit will be below the 7.6% we and a substantial group of analysts and investors were expecting, and closer to 6.2%. Net NCG debt also im...

Webinar replay - Latin America in 2026: Inflation, policy and politics in a shifting global landscape
COLOMBIA · Report · 12 Dec 2025

Going into 2026, what is the economic outlook for the key Latin American economies of Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, and Mexico? How will the persistence of above-target inflation in the region be addressed? What is ahead for monetary policy and central banks? Is LatAm positioned well for a reve...

A surprising Invamer poll rocks the political landscape
COLOMBIA · In Brief · 01 Dec 2025 · 1 response

After a long period without official polls due to a legal ban, Invamer published on Nov. 30th a surprising poll on the presidential election. The main result is a substantial jump in leftist Iván Cepeda’s vote intention, surpassing right-wing Abelardo de la Espriella, and centrist Sergio Fajardo,...

An unexpected turn of fiscal events
COLOMBIA · Report · 01 Dec 2025 · 1 response

Deterioration in the primary balance is expected to be fully compensated for by lower interest payments, so the new expected NCG deficit number for 2025 should be the same 6.7% of GDP as posted in 2024. In terms of debt, things might be somewhat improving on that end too: due to the effects of de...

The road to darkness
COLOMBIA · Report · 05 Nov 2025 · 3 responses

Witnessing U.S. President Donald Trump accuse President Gustavo Petro of being an “illegal drug trafficker,” and Petro retort that he should help depose Trump, we might wonder – as a former Colombian president did in the early 1960s, at a minister’s suggestion that Colombia declare war on the Uni...

Decertification is deserved – yet unlikely to do much damage
COLOMBIA · Report · 30 Sep 2025 · 3 responses

U.S. President Donald Trump has identified Colombia as a major drug transit or primary illicit drug-producing country, along with the usual suspects, among them Afghanistan, Bolivia, China and Mexico. It’s not surprising that President Gustavo Petro’s policies and military strategy have led Colom...

Which way will the Constitutional Court go?
COLOMBIA · Report · 28 Aug 2025

This is a pivotal moment for the composition of Colombia’s Constitutional Court. Justice José Fernando Reyes, aligned with the “defense of institutions” bloc, will soon resign, leaving a critical vacancy. To fill it, the Supreme Court has nominated Patricia Balanta, Carlos Camargo and Jaime Humbe...

Obstinate Petro risks blowing up public finances
COLOMBIA · Report · 01 Aug 2025 · 1 response

The criminal trial of Álvaro Uribe—the most influential political figure in Colombia in the 21st century—has culminated in a ruling that could redefine the country’s relationship between law and power. After years of legal entanglements rooted in a 2012 complaint initiated by Uribe himself, Judge...

Downgrades and deficits will be Petro’s legacy
COLOMBIA · Report · 03 Jul 2025

Rumors began spreading last month that the government wanted to suspend the fiscal rule, not due to a true macroeconomic emergency, but because of a soaring deficit driven by the government’s expansive fiscal ambitions and flagging revenue performance. The only way out for an administration that...

Webinar replay - Colombia in turmoil
COLOMBIA · Report · 13 Jun 2025

What is driving the current wave of violence in Colombia? What are the likely consequences for governability, reforms and an eventual consultation on labor reform? What are the implications for the presidential race? How will the central bank act in its June meeting? Visit our calendar page to...

Terror, uncertainty, paranoia
COLOMBIA · In Brief · 09 Jun 2025 · 2 responses

It is challenging to interpret the events unfolding in Colombia. There are many antecedents from a distant past that Colombians thought were behind us. Back in the early nineties, many presidential candidates were assassinated in Colombia by the dark forces of narco-trafficking and paramilitarism...

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