Foreign investment in Colombia’s oil and mining sector exceeded $13.12 billion in 2012, marking an 8.38% increase since 2011, local media reported on Wednesday.
The records of the Central bank show that in 2011 foreign direct investment in oil and mining was $12.23 billion.
There are worries among analysts that Colombia could succumb to Dutch disease, a condition where a natural resources boom causes the local currency to strengthen and in turn erodes manufacturers’ profits.
In mid-2012, Juan Carlos Echeverry, then Colombia’s Finance Minister, urged Colombia to head off the onset of Dutch disease when he proposed a more aggressive currency intervention by the central bank.
“Brazil is printing money; the United States is printing money. If you don’t fight this currency war, you suffer,” Echeverry told Bloomberg in June of last year.