Colombia’s central bank raised the projected economic growth for 2018 to 2.7% as the South American country recovers from the 2014 drop in commodity prices.
The growth rate for this year has been projected to be 1.6%, the lowest in the first 17 years of this century. In the minutes published on Friday, economic growth hit bottom in the second quarter of this year.
Colombia’s GDP growth
Starting in the third quarter of this year, the bank registered “more dynamic external demand, good public consumption behavior and a significant growth in public works,” according to the Central Bank.
The collapse of the price of oil, Colombia’s primary export product, forced the government to introduce unpopular austerity measures in the 2016 and 2017 budgets.
Over the past year, oil prices increased more than 40%.
If the global oil prices maintain themselves, they “would continue to drive the recovery of Colombia in terms of terms of trade for the remainder of the year.”