Colombia economy on path to grow more than 9% this year, president says

Colombia's economy is on the path to grow more than 9% this year, as the economy reopens amid coronavirus vaccinations, President Ivan Duque said on Thursday.

Colombia's economy is on the path to grow more than 9% this year, as the economy reopens amid coronavirus vaccinations, President Ivan Duque said on Thursday. The government statistics agency said this week the economy expanded 13.2% in the third quarter, compared to the same period last year, which was above market expectations and took year-on-year growth between January and September to 10.3%.

"The Colombian economy is showing its resilience," Duque told journalists at the presidential palace, saying government recovery plans and mass vaccination were bearing fruit. "We can even raise our growth projection and set the growth goal above 9%. It's possible and I think Colombia is going in that direction."

The government officially revised its growth outlook for this year to 8.5% early this month, from an original of 6%, while the central bank projects expansion of 9.8%. Higher-than-expected growth led 12-month inflation to grow to 4.58% in October - well above the central bank's long-term 3% target.

The bank has responded to rising consumer prices with interest rate rises which began in September, when policy makers raised borrowing costs by 25 basis points, and continued in October, when they increased them by 50 basis points to 2.5%. Some 23.1 million Colombians - nearly half the population of 50 million - are fully vaccinated against the coronavirus. Another 18.5 million have had a first dose.

(This story has not been edited by Devdiscourse staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)