Weekly Report - 22 January 2009 (ISSN 1741-7422)

COLOMBIA | Budget deficit. The finance minister, Oscar Zuluaga, is predicting a shortfall of Col$5.5 trillion (US$2.46bn) this year as a result of the global economic slowdown. Zuluaga blamed shrinking state tax revenue and rising debt-servicing costs. President Alvaro Uribe will meet his Venezuelan peer Hugo Chávez in Cartagena on 24 January to discuss ways of confronting the economic crisis. Uribe said the tax take was Col$710bn (US$318m) short of target (and set to fall in 2009) despite increasing by 11.5% to Col$67trillion (US$30bn) in 2008 on 2007, according to the tax office (Dian). He also said tax revenue from the state-controlled oil company, Ecopetrol, could fall from US$3.14bn to US$672m this year. Remittances from Colombian expatriates are already falling - down 31% in November from the same month in 2007 to US$321m. Vehicle sales also fell 16% annually to 217,048 units in 2008.

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