The Americas Economy

Emerging markets have commanded the world’s development focus for the past two decades. In particular, four developing countries gained a key position since the start of the 21st century. The retiring chairman of Goldman Sachs, Jim O’Neill, was the first to consider Brazil, Russia, India and China the most powerful emerging markets in 2001 and call them the BRICs. Now...

The global economic recession that began in 2008 has underlined the significance and strength of emerging markets, and highlighted regions that were previously in the shadows. In addition to developing in their own right, Latin America and South-east Asia rapidly recognised their potential as trade partners. On April 28, 2011 a regional initiative was launched in the...

Between March and May 2014, young people between the ages of 14 and 28 accounted for 32.5% of the working age population, according to the National Department of Statistics (Departamento Administrativo Nacional de Estadística, DANE.) In total, Colombia has about 11.9m young people.

After recording 6.6% growth in 2011, Colombia’s economy experienced a slowdown in the second half of 2012 and the first half of 2013. GDP grew by 4% in 2012 and by just 2.8% in the first quarter of 2013. However, the second half of the year was very positive. The sound performance of the construction sector, along with strong investment in...

Colombian sovereign bonds have once again proven their attractiveness to international investors. The popularity of these instruments has been demonstrated by the interest shown by credit institutions, pension funds, foreign investment funds, and insurance companies, which made significant investments in the country’s treasury securities during a February 2014 issuance....