I know what you were thinking as you woke up this morning, dear reader. You stretched, yawned, made for the shower and thought to yourself, "I wonder how the Colombian trade balance has performed in the last three years or so?", so fortunately IKN is here to help you out on that burning question.
Here's the monthly import and export figures for Colombia in the period January 2007 to January 2010.
Here's the monthly import and export figures for Colombia in the period January 2007 to January 2010.
As we can see, the country went through the same sales slump (both inbound and outbound) as the rest of the region thanks to the financial crisis. We also see a slow but sure rebound in 2009 that has put the worst behind it but still isn't close to the 2008 good times. So yet again, you're going to have to take the rah-rah brigade's GDP growth fanfares with a large pinch of salt this year, as the better comparative will not be Year-over-Year but 2010-to-2008.
As for the exports mix, this zippy chart put together above shows the percentage take-up of its main exports. Surprisingly coffee is but a minor part of the mix, with the big big growth seen recently in hydrocarbons (oil, gas etc) and coal (which is a hydrocarbon in itself, I suppose). Together, oil/gas and coal in Jan'07 was less than 40% of Colombia's exports, but in Jan'10 that percentage was nearly 59%, a big upmove in just three years. Ferro-nickel used to be a bigger slice of things, but it not no more.
Put simply, Colombia doesn't give a rat's gluteus maximus if Chávez stops buying its textiles cos it's now busy enough selling oil to the gringos. Mojitos served, the end.