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“Colombia is today ‘the pretty girl’ for foreign investment in Latin America,” says Vice President of Colombia, Francisco Santos. And no doubt, macroeconomic and political stability, economic growth and an improved level of security over the last five years have placed this country in an excellent position to attract foreign and local investment. Private investment reached 18 percent of GDP last year and the economy grew nearly 7 percent in 2006, the biggest expansion in 29 years for an Andean nation, according to government statistics.
International evaluators have confirmed investor confidence. Both Standard & Poor’s and Fitch’s Sovereign Group have recently upgraded two of the country’s currency sovereign credit ratings. They affirm that Colombia has “significantly improved growth prospects and fiscal performance” and note that “GDP growth is expected to remain around 5 percent over the next two years.” Strong recovery in investment, the possibility of long-term trade agreements and the “security dividend” are said to be the driving forces behind a better business climate.
“Bogota presents lower crime rates than Washington,” says Jean Claude Bessudo, president of Aviatur Travel Agency, adding that “Colombia went directly from having no international image to having a terrible image, with nothing in between.”
Long-term stigmatization of Colombia as a country with drug-dealers, guerrilla wars and paramilitaries, has kept most tourists and investors from visiting. “Such stereotypes about Colombia prevent people from seeing this country in all of its complexity; in its positive aspects that are so many, as well as in its negative ones,” says Vice President Santos. “Today, Colombia has returned to the tourist map, the investment map and the political map,” he noted.
During the last five years President Alvaro Uribe’s “iron fist” policies, have reportedly produced important results toward security and peace: a 90 percent reduction in kidnappings, the demobilization of 30,000 men from illegal paramilitary groups during 2006, and an agreement to start peace negotiations with the ELN guerrilla group.
The fight against drug production and trafficking is also a firm objective. “There is no better antidote against drugs than an economy growing at a 7 percent rate,” says Santos.
President Uribe has said: “We have had as much firmness to fight violence as openness to facilitate peace.”
In this national context, Cartagena has enjoyed a revival on many fronts. First, its attractive location in the Caribbean has made it a favorite port of origin and headquarters for international cruise ship companies. Donald Trump has expressed a desire to invest in hotels there.
Hollywood movie production companies have chosen Cartagena as a location for making important films, and international conventions have increased as foreign investors consider real state and tourist-related businesses to pursue in this lovely, but relatively unknown, colonial city. “Who would have thought that Vietnam or Cambodia would become first order tourist destinations,” says Aviatur’s Bessudo. “It only takes signs of peace, peace agreements, and then people will come,” he affirmed.
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