For the first time in 22 months, Colombia’s sales to the world were in negative territory and after having registered growth close to 84 percent, as happened in April.
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This was revealed on Tuesday National Administrative Department of Statistics (Dane) noting that in December the country’s exports fell 1 percent compared to the same month of the previous year. The maximum growth achieved was in the fourth month of 2022 and from then on the country’s export dynamics decreased until it entered negative territory at the end of last year.
The result occurred, even, at a time when the exchange rate registered historical maximums of more than 5,061 pesos.
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Although in the entire year exports had an annual growth of 38 percent, «in December (2022) there is already a slowdown,» said the union of Colombian exporters. Analdex.
For the last month of 2022, Colombian external sales reached 4,498 million dollars (FOB). Regarding the exported weight, it decreased 14.5 percent, to 8.9 million metric tons.
Parachute Javier Diaz Molina, president of the export union, the country’s external sales in 2022 were positive: “There is a favorable trend, a growth in total sales. It was expected to reach 60,000 million dollars, we were very close. However, with the 57,000 million, significant growth will continue compared to 2021 ”.
This growth was 38 percent compared to 2021 and 44.6 percent compared to 2019.
In December, the sectors that saw their exports to the world fall the most were non-edible raw materials (19.2 percent), chemical products and related products (12.8 percent) and miscellaneous manufactured articles (11.6 percent).
However, the fall in external sales that most affected the total performance of December was that of «other sectors», which reached 10.7 percent and contributed 0.8 percentage points to the dynamics of that month.
It is worth noting that last December 14.3 million barrels of crude oil were exported, which represented a 17 percent drop compared to the same month in 2021.
export destination
According to the information provided by the Dane, USA It continues to be Colombia’s main trading partner, accounting for 25.8 percent of its exports to the world and a variation of 34.7 percent, followed by the European Union with 13.9 percent and a variation of 79 percent. Panama is another destination that performs well, with 10.2 percent and a variation of 144.7 percent.
María Claudia Lacouture, president of the Colombian American Chamber of Commerce (AmCham)He said that the figures with the United States reflected the importance of having a free trade agreement (FTA), but also the need to strengthen promotional actions so that more Colombian products reach that destination, especially from the agro-industrial sector, which obtained sales of 4,552 million dollars in 2022.
The official statistics also indicate that exports to Venezuela had an annual rebound of 90.9 percent, going from 331.2 million in 2021 to 632.3 million dollars last year, as a result of the reestablishment of relations between the two nations.
It is striking the sharp drop in sales to Porcelain, which decreased by 41 percent.
“We know the volatilities that exist in oil and coalthe difficulties that have been generated by the contradictory messages from government officials regarding hydrocarbon exploration, among others, but I believe that the behavior of non-mining-energy exports is favourable, positive and one hopes that it will continue like this in 2023,» Díaz commented. , who added: «The probability of a recession has receded and hopefully it will be so, because for a country like Colombia the dynamics of international demand is very important.»
