Colombia's Economic Growth Challenges

When you see the numbers today of Colombia,

51 of the reasons for growth

come from the public sector during the last three years.

That's absurd.

We have to increase the interest

in the private sector to invest in Colombia.

Hopefully, now we have seen interest from different firms,

from different investors who say maybe this is the time to invest

in the region, in Colombia.

And if we connect that,

the regions plus the interest from the private sector,

you can get possibilities for growth.

And that's relevant because structurally the country itself has a challenge.

I was reading a study done by McKinsey which says

that in developed countries during the last 15 years,

two thirds of the growth come from productivity and one third

from increasing the workforce.

In Colombia, during the last 15 years,

the numbers are different.

Two thirds of the growth come from increasing workforce and one third

from productivity.

If we don't increase productivity,

we are not going to increase the potential growth of our country.

And that's relevant since at the same time, demographic numbers are decreasing.

The fertility rate is decreasing.

Just one city like Bogota has a fertility rate of 0 8,

Medellin 0 9,

less than Japan which is a country with low levels of fertility, low demographics.

So structurally, you need to give an answer to that topic.

The only way to do it is first confronting ideology,

fundamentalism, the one that we have lived during the last four years.

The government didn't like oil and gas.

They didn't like mining, they didn't like housing,

they didn't like infrastructure.

So they destroyed those sectors.

Well, you need them, you need them.

You need, for example, the mining sector. Why? Because this is strategic.

You cannot do a transition without mining,

copper, lithium, and so on. You need that.

You need, of course,

infrastructure to connect the country and the country with the world.

You need housing to create employment,

to build the idea of Colombia as a land of proprietarios.

So I think that this is a moment in which we

have to turn on those sectors which were turned off by the government.

And you have to turn on others,

agro industry with technology,

being more productive, even developing clusters like the Altillanura Cluster,

the Mato Grosso from Colombia.

You have also to turn

on the sector of services based on knowledge.