In his weekly column Cuentas Claras, Mauricio Galindo, economic editor of EL TIEMPO, offers the curious figures around the news that happened in the last 7 days. On this occasion, the data around the crisis of the airline Viva Air, the weight of being the largest company in the country and the historical figure of the investment that came to Colombia, among others.
(Also: Four reasons why in 2023 there will be no more record profits from Ecopetrol)
Long live, down; prices up?
The exit of the market -temporary or definitive- of the airline live air reduce the supply of passenger air transport in Colombia by 20 percent. In other words, in order not to see the chaos at the airports in recent days, all the other airlines operating in the country will have to have the capacity to make an additional flight for every 4 flights they make. This supply impact will probably have an impact on prices.
What it means to be the biggest company
Compared with the results of 2021 (because all the figures for 2022 are not yet available), the enormous profit record of Ecopetrol from last year It is equivalent to the joint profits of the 45 largest companies in the country that follow the oil company in size. Last week it was learned that Ecopetrol advanced benefits of 33 billion pesos, double what it had achieved in 2021, which had also been a record.
(We recommend: ‘Take care of Ecopetrol’: Felipe Bayón’s saying message to Petro)
Reversal is a two lane highway
With the strong boost received in the first half of last year, foreign direct investment made in Colombia in 2022 was the highest in history. Meanwhile, Colombian investment abroad was the highest in the last four years. According to the accounts of the balance of payments, for every dollar that national companies invested abroad, foreign ones invested 4.6 dollars in the country.
Employment loosens the accelerator
The increase in jobs that has been registered since the economic upturn began, after the pandemic, is already slowing down. In the months of April and May of last year, there were increases of more than 2 million jobs, compared to a year ago. That rate has been decreasing since then, and for the month of January of this year the increase was 796,000 jobs.
