Weekly Report - 27 January 2004

COLOMBIA | Growth expectation ratcheted up. Better-than-expected performance in some areas — commerce, construction, electricity — has led Colombia's planning department to raise the growth forecast for this year from 3.3% to 3.8%. This is expected to be adopted this week as the official target by the national economic and social council, Conpes, which will most probably set the fiscal deficit projection at 2.5% of GDP. It is reckoned that Colombia's GDP grew by 3.4% in 2003. This year the planners expect above-average performance from industry (+4.6%) and agriculture (+4%).

PERU | Oil raises `traditional' export earnings. Thanks to improved world prices, last year Peru's earnings from exports of oil and derivates rose by 39%. This led to a 15.6% increase in all earnings from traditional exports (to US$6.24bn), only a smidgen more than the 15.2% increase (to US$2.62bn) in those from non-traditional exports, led by chemicals (+22.9%), textiles (+21.4%), fish (+19.8%) and metal products (+18.7%). All told, Peru's export earnings of US$8.85bn were up 15.6% on 2002.

BOLIVIA | Gas boosts export revenues. In the fist 11 months of last year Bolivia's export earnings reached US$1.42bn, or 17.3% more than in the same period of 2002. Much of this was due to gas exports to Brazil, which increased by 43%, to US$425m (almost 30% of all export earnings). Manufactures, which grew by a much more modest 5%, brought in US$706m (just under half of all earnings). Mining exports, once the mainstay of Bolivia's economy, grew by 10%, to US$199.9m.

End of preview - This article contains approximately 270 words.

Subscribers: Log in now to read the full article

Not a Subscriber?

Choose from one of the following options

• Subscribe
• Sign up for a one-time, 14-day trial