Colombia’s economy grew 5.2 percent in the second quarter compared with the same period a year ago, fueled by a boom in the mining and oil sectors.
While the United States struggles with high unemployment and the risk of falling back into recession, resource-rich emerging market countries such as Colombia have seen their economies expand briskly since the global credit crisis.
Colombia’s 5.2 percent year-over-year GDP growth reported by the DANE statistics agency on Thursday was in line with the 5.21 percent average expected by 34 analysts in a Reuters poll.
Colombia’s fast-growing mining and oil sectors drove much of the growth in the second quarter with transport and commerce also pushing it up.
The agency said that Latin America’s fifth-largest economy, expanded 2.1 percent in the second quarter from the first quarter, pushed up by construction and mining.
The DANE agency also revised down Colombia’s economic expansion in the first quarter to 4.7 percent from the previously reported 5.1 percent.
Once seen as a failing state mired in guerrilla war and drug violence, Colombia has turned its economy around, winning three investment-grade credit ratings this year and attracting increasing amounts of foreign investment.
Colombia’s central bank also paused a monetary tightening cycle after six straight hikes as worries of another global recession hit financial markets and stoked uncertainty.
“While the Colombian economy performed well in the first half of this year, the current global market mayhem underlines our belief that the economy will slow next year,” Capital Economics said in a note.
“But growth is unlikely to collapse altogether and we still expect GDP to expand by 3 percent in 2012 following an increase of 5.5 percent this year,” it added.
