Industry & Retail

Largely cut off from foreign investment during the 1980s and 1990s due to security concerns, Colombia developed a wide variety of local manufacturing businesses and brands. However, the opening of the economy over the past decade has forced local firms to compete with international imports. Moreover, the rapid growth of the oil and mining industries has shrunk manufacturing’s importance in the wider economy. In the first nine months of 2015 the sector’s proportion of GDP fell below 11%, down from 14% in 2009. Nonetheless, several sub-sectors continue to show promise, and the devaluation of the peso, improvements to infrastructure and the commissioning of a new refinery offer hope of an industrial rebound. Meanwhile, despite the economic slowdown and the weakening of the peso, the retail sector posted solid growth of 3.4% in the first 10 months of 2015, with hardware and home improvement sales (18.3%), and alcoholic beverages and cigarettes (13.5%), among the best-performing segments.

This chapter includes an interview with Christian Daes, Chief Operating Officer, Tecnoglass.