Colombia will report a current accounts deficit
equivalent to 4.5% of gross domestic product in 2009, Oscar Ivan Zuluaga,
Colombia’s finance minister said Wednesday.
He said the current account gap will widen from 2008 when the deficit was
estimated between 2.3% and 2.7% of GDP.
Zuluaga, speaking at a lecture in Bogota, added that the 2008 current account
deficit was financed mainly by foreign direct investment and he expects the 2009
deficit to be financed by more government borrowing from abroad, and by more
foreign borrowing from local companies, such as state-controlled oil company
Ecopetrol. (Dow Jones)