Colombia will consider allowing multinational companies to pay some taxes offshore to reduce the flow of dollars into the country and stem the peso’s rise, Finance Minister Juan Carlos Echeverry said on Friday.
The government of President Juan Manuel Santos is also looking at promoting foreign direct investment through pesos borrowed locally so that investors do not bring more dollars into Colombia, Echeverry said in an interview with Reuters Insider on the sidelines of the fall meetings of the International Monetary Fund and World Bank here.
The peso has strengthened by more than 12 percent against the U.S. dollar so far in 2010.
The finance minister said he was confident that the bulk of a reform package that the Santos government is pushing through Congress will be passed by the end of the year, including a royalties-reform measure that has met with opposition from lawmakers from oil-producing regions.