Hours before the Dane delivers the official results of Colombia’s economic growth during 2021, The National Government revised upwards its projection of the country’s GDP last year.
(‘In 2021 economic growth was above 10.2%’, Duque).
It was President Duque himself who announced that, according to estimates by the Ministry of Financethe Colombian economy would have grown 10.2%, a figure higher than previous projections, which indicated an economic growth of 9.7% for Colombia.
On January 19, in a speech at the Davos Economic Forum, President Duque estimated that Colombia’s Gross Domestic Product could grow by 9.7% in 2021, after two years of the pandemic, a figure that was in line with the OECD forecasts.
Against these projections, Colombia was the third most prominent country among 38 economies in this group, only surpassed by Ireland with a growth forecast of 15.2% and Chile (12.0%).
(The country’s GDP in 2021 would reach double digits and would be around 10%.)
According to these estimates, in the top 10 OECD countries, the Colombian economy outperformed Estonia (9.6%), Turkey (9.0%), United Kingdom (7.2%), Hungary (6.9%), France (6.7%), Greece (6.7%) and Italy (6.2%).
IMF PROJECTIONS
For its part, this upward revision that the National Government announced on Monday is in line with the estimates that the International Monetary Fund (IMF) had made on the growth of the Colombian economy for the end of 2021.
Last January 31, The IMF highlighted that Colombia would be the economy that would grow the most in 2022 with a 4.5% increase in its gross domestic product, after a growth of 10.2% in 2021, according to estimates from the economic body.
Under this projection, Brazil and Mexico would have grown by 4.7% and 5.3% last year, respectively, as a rebound effect.
Meanwhile Argentina would have grown by 10%, Chile by 12%; and Peru would achieve a growth of 13.3% in 2021.
According to these estimates, Latin America would be the region with the least growth in the world in 2022.
(Current challenges in economic and social policies).
Specifically, Latin America would be growing by 2.4% in 2022, which represents a reduction of 0.6 percentage points compared to the previous forecast (3%) that the international organization forecast in October 2021.
UPWARD REVISION ON ITS PROJECTIONS
In December, the Colombian government had already improved the annual growth prospects, which it had previously forecast at 8.5%.
This new projection placed Colombia with an economic growth of 9.7%, and was based mainly on the positive behavior of retail sales and manufacturing industrial production in October 2021, since they grew by 14.2% and 10.1% compared to the same month of 2020, respectively.
For December, the GDP forecast pointed to an advance in the third quarter of 2021 of 5.7% compared to the previous quarter, and 13.2% compared to July-September 2020, which placed it, only behind Chile, as the region’s economy with the highest growth.
BRIEFCASE
