Colombia GDP overtakes Argentina’s, “a dream come true” says Finance minister
Colombia’s outgoing Finance minister Juan Carlos Echeverry said on Friday that the country’s GDP overtook Argentina’s thus making Colombia’s economy the second largest of South America and third of Latinamerica, behind Brazil and Mexico.
Etcheverry who is expected to hold a top job at the IMF made the statements in an interview with a Bogotá radio station indicating that ‘the great news’ of his stepping down from cabinet last August 23 was precisely that Colombia had made “a dream come true”.
“Colombia overtook Argentina’s GDP; we are the second economy in South America behind Brazil and third largest behind Brazil and Mexico. In the first two years of President (Juan Manuel) Santos administration we managed to overtake the Venezuelan economy and now the Argentine, it’s a dream come true”, said Echeverry.
“Colombia is advancing, we’re doing things, the right things, with great impetus and advancing”, added Echeverry who anticipated he was certain that his successor in the post, the current Mines and energy minister Mauricio Cardenas, “will continue advancing along that path”.
Echeverry added he had applied to become the IMF Western Hemisphere director in charge of monitoring the Latin American and Caribbean economies.
The outgoing minister also revealed that Colombia may change its representation on the IMF executive board, moving from a nine-nation constituency led by Brazil to another headed by Mexico.
Colombia together with Mexico, Peru and Chile have created the Pacific Alliance, an organization to promote trade and investment, which contrary to what is going on at the ‘protectionist’ Atlantic side of South America, these countries are identified with open economies, welcome foreign investment, promote trade and the private sector.
In an interview with Bogotá’s El Tiempo newspaper, Echeverry said that according to the current exchange rates, the Colombian GDP at the end of the year will reach 362 billon dollars or 15bn ahead of Argentina’s 347 billion.
The difference, based on IMF data, is attributed to the fact Argentina’s GDP is calculated at the unregulated exchange rate of 6.37 Pesos to the US dollar instead of the 4.67 Pesos of the official exchange. At the unregulated dollar market in Argentina, the Peso has slid almost 30% to 6.5 per dollar while the regulated official exchange, but everyday more inaccessible stands at 4.67 to the greenback.
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OMG, lol.
Poor man just lost his job and needs to save his hour.
This is not serious, he said “Colombia GDP overtakes Argentina’s” and at the end of the article... If we take the unofficial blue dollar rate which is he said 6, 37. ???
Argentina doesn’t measure the economy in that rate. Cos they export and import with the official dollar rate. Will be the same if want to buy goods at the supermarket in Rio with rate of the gold in Uzbekistan
The same if ill say Argentina economy is bigger than Mexican if we don’t count the cacao, sugar, coffee and cell- phones exportations.
By the way, who signs the articles???
Cheers!
First of all; welcome to this neo-liberal des-information paradise.....
You are quite right about Mr. Echeverry's “Strange Ways” , taking a insignificant and local “Black Market” dollar cotization as a base for his international economical calculations.....
And such a person is appling to become the IMF Western Hemisphere Director for Latin America and the Caribbean !!!
Knowing a bit about the IMF, he wil most probably get the job......:-(
Having said that, I rejoice about the good times Colombia seems to be heading towards.
Hope this is the beginning of the end of more than 60 years of “Violencia” on that beautiful Country.
El Think
Chubut, Argentina
Jealous of Colombia? Are you also now starting to realise the lies and bullshit you are being fed about your economy?
Chortle, chortle.
I wish the best for Colombia they deserve to have a marvelous future. Better than anyone else.
But a fantasy is never a reality...
Business are always dealing in official rates,
Mr Etcheverry should use 6.70 or 7.35 unofficial rate to make his point clearer or 3.70 like some use at the airports in Argentina. But that one wouldn’t be that convenient.
C'est tout pour aujourd'hui
Cheers!
Good for Colombia.
“But a fantasy is never a reality” Really, someone should pin that up on CFKC's mirror.
The article is another thing.
Why would I and get a massive 52% hit against my USD?
I would never trade with Argentina in any case.
Delusional Argies in Chubut may 'Think' that is how the world works, but the rest of us know better.
Who needs armed forces when we have you destroying Argentina for us.
Argentina having more international trade disputes running than any other county and Argentina being regarded as a pariah state by international money lenders has anything to do with Columbia's ascendance and Argentina's demise?
Still well done Cristina and the Comedy club for making Argentina a fourth rate latin American country.
Just for your information, when you are working with a fraction where both the numerator and denominator depends on a common variable, you cannot change the variable in the denominator without changing the numerator. Since you come from a background in engineering... let say you have F(X)/X. If you change X in the denominator, F(.) would also change.
The people who did this back of the envelope calculation said... well... I will divide Argentine GDP in pesos by the black market exchange rate instead of the official one and therefore the GDP in dollars will be smaller WITHOUT taking into account that the Argentine GDP in Pesos (the numerator) also depends on the exchange rate you use as a large share of it is TRADABLE... so if you use the Black market exchange rate, you should also RE-ESTIMATE the GDP in pesos using that black market exchange rate.
So either, the Colombian newspaper published rubbish or we should be worry this guy will be the head of the IMF for Latin America.
Argentine GDP in nominal/PPP/or per capita terms is larger than Colombian as of today (even without INDEC number cooking).
Argentina’s GDP at constant prices from 1993 $1=1 USD= USD 499bn
GDP in Official exchange rate = USD 1= $4.63= 483bn
GDP in Dollar Blue (for tax evaders & illegal) = USD 1= $6.37= USD 350,33bn
GDP in PPP=USD 820bn
Colombia’s GDP in Official Exchange rate = $328.4 billion
GDP in PPP= $478bn
Just wonder if Mr. Echeverry cans properly use a calculator.
Anyway doesn’t matters if he plans to work for IMF none cares as IMF use guessing formula if they are wrong simple they formulate another guess based thin air.
Are Cristina's days numbered?
You are right, fromwhat I could see on other forums about Colombia estadistics, but still, I think a congratulation is in order because they have done a really good job in control of their currency, FT put it the second best performing currency of the developing markets, and their fiscal stability is sound, I am just happy for them :)
Not sure why the minister said this after aparently having a misunderstanding with Colombia´s president. dont see how would this help really.
I think it is clear for many today that Colombia will soon become the third largest economy in Latin America, specially when Argentina`s government seems to have lost its path in nationalizations and protectionism.
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