Business Traveller Asia-Pacific Edition – November 2018

T

he Andean sun, veiled by passing clouds

but deceptively strong, shines down

onPlazaBolivar.Asever,thesquareis

thronging with tourists, SIM-card vendors,

presidential guards in ceremonial uniform

and children chasing pigeons. On one side,

the magnificent neoclassical cathedral.

Opposite is the town hall. A third building houses the

Capitolio Nacional, seat of the national congress. The fourth

is occupied by the Palace of Justice which, in November

1985, was attacked by members of the M-19 Marxist

guerrilla group. They took 300 people hostage. A hapless

military raid followed, during which 11 Supreme Court

justices, 49 Colombian soldiers, 35 M-19 guerrillas and 11

ancillary staff and civilians died or disappeared.

Whether here in La Candelaria – the cobblestoned

historic centre – or in its skyscraper-strewn sprawl,

Colombia’s past horrors are easily unearthed. Historians

usuallytracetheoriginsofthenation’swell-reportedwoes

to a ten-year civil war known as La Violencia, sparked by the

assassination of presidential candidate Jorge Eliecer Gaitan

in 1948. But the armed conf lict that generated the image of

apariahnation–inthralltodruglords,left-wingrebelsand

right-wing paramilitary groups – probably peaked in the

1990s, when two-thirds of the world’s kidnappings occurred

here,andtheFARC(RevolutionaryArmedForcesof

Colombia) controlled up to a third of Colombia’s territory.

Dealing with the past

From 2002, the government of Alvaro Uribe gave the army

greater powers to undermine the military strength of the

guerrillas. His successor, Juan Manuel Santos, kept up the

pressure and invited FARC to peace negotiations. The

twin-pronged approach worked. Santos was awarded the

Nobel Peace prize in 2016. On September 1, 2017, FARC

became a political party, parading through Plaza Bolivar.

In tandem with these changes are dramatically improved

economic prospects. Since 2011, direct foreign investment

into Colombia has more than doubled and, according to

the Ministry of Commerce, more than 1,100 foreignirms

have set up operations in the country. In May, Colombia

was invited to join Mexico and Chile

as the third Latin American member

of the OECD, the select club of 36

wealthy, stable democracies.

But South America’s third largest

economy, behind Brazil and Argentina,

relies heavily on global commodity

prices. Inevitably, Colombia reels

wheneverthereisadownturn–asat

present – in the value of petroleum, coal,

bananas, cut f lowers or cofee. It’s the

world’s largest producer of mild, washed

Arabica coffee; in 2017, production was

14.2 million bags, mainly for export.

Economic growth slowed to 1.8 per cent in

2017 – down from 2 per cent the previous year

(and way down from the 5-6 per cent notched up

before the crude oil crash of 2014). But the World Bank

noted an upturn in financial services. As the climatic effects

of the El Nino phenomenon dissipated and the livestock

sector expanded, agriculture expanded 4.95 per cent last year.

Colombia reels when

thereisadownturnin

the value of petroleum,

coal, bananas,

f lowers or coffee

NOVEMBER 2018 businesstraveller.com

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