Andean Group - March 2026

COLOMBIA | Petro insists on minimum wage hike. On 19 February Colombia’s President Gustavo Petro issued a decree reinstating the 23.7% increase to the minimum wage which was suspended on 13 February by the Consejo de Estado, the country’s top administrative court. The court had said that the government had not justified the increase in sufficiently detailed macroeconomic terms. The new wage has been welcomed by trade unions but received a mixed response from business lobbies. Petro announced the new decree as he addressed a pro-government demonstration in the capital Bogotá, amid mobilisations around the country in support of the higher minimum wage. Petro told the crowd that “this is the first living wage in the history of Colombia, or at least since the 1991 constitution” which the government is also aiming to reform. The new minimum wage is Col$1.75m (US$474) per month, with an additional transport subsidy for lower earners of Col$249,000, which was raised by 24.5%.

VENEZUELA | New hydrocarbons minister. On 11 March Venezuela’s President Delcy Rodríguez appointed Paula Henao as hydrocarbons minister, a role Rodríguez had been carrying out herself since August 2024. Henao, who was previously deputy oil minister, has spent most of her career as an oil engineer at state oil company Petróleos de Venezuela (Pdvsa) and led projects at the company’s research institute, its Orinoco oilfields, and offshore. Venezuela’s oil production increased in monthly terms in February but remains lower than it was in December 2025 shortly before the US capture of Rodríguez’s predecessor Nicolás Maduro (2013-2026). Venezuela claimed to have produced 1.02m barrels of oil per day (bpd) in February, up from 924,000 bpd in January but lower than the 1.12m bpd it reported in December. An estimate from the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (Opec), based on secondary sources, put Venezuela’s February production at 903,000 bpd, up from 823,000 bpd in January but lower than its estimate of 917,000 bpd in December.

Andean countries: inflation rate
Percentage variation (year-on-year)

Andean countries: GDP growth (%)
Quarterly figures are year-on-year growth