Colombia has not yet taken advantage of its export potential

Colombian exports were not encouraging last year when compared to the results of purchases that the country made abroad; a situation that caused the trade balance to reach a historic deterioration in November 2021.

And it is that in November of last year there was a growth in the balance deficit of more than US$550 million compared to the same month of 2020, reaching a value of US$2,010 million. In turn, between January and November this deficit increased by more than 35% compared to the same period in 2020.

Thus, for experts consulted by EL COLOMBIANO, the problem is not the increase in imports but rather how far behind are foreign sales. According to their analyses, Colombia has not fully explored its export potential, largely because the incentives to do so have been few, a result of the demanding requirements that national production must meet, poor infrastructure, and expensive logistics services.

Exports are alarming

For Javier Díaz, president of the National Association of Exporters (Analdex), the alert goes to the side of exports, which are still very low, since he considers that what imports are showing is that the productive apparatus is has been dynamizing

“The country is below the Latin American per capita average in terms of exports, so what we have to do is increase them. It is not about prohibiting or closing imports that are necessary for the country's productive apparatus," Díaz said.

And he noted that purchases abroad are not the ones that worry, since they are products that cannot be produced in the country, either because it would be much more expensive to do so or because Colombia does not have the productivity or conditions climatic conditions that other countries have.