Colombia’s exports fall for the 2nd consecutive year

In terms of products, Colombia’s exports totaled 25,462 million dollars from January to October 2020, a decrease of 23.3 percent.

This is the second consecutive fall, since comparing the same periods of 2019 against 2018, Colombian exports contracted 5.2 percent.

This South American country has shown a downward trend in its foreign merchandise sales, which have almost halved from the 48,605 million dollars reached in the first 10 months of 2013.

Raw materials, particularly coffee, oil, and coal, have traditionally been Colombia’s most important exports.

In 1995, coffee represented 18.0% of exports, while oil and its derivatives accounted for 21.5% of total exports.

During the next two decades, according to data from the Colombian government, the relative importance of the two basic products changed significantly, and in 2015 coffee represented approximately 7.0% of total exports, while oil and its derivatives had a share of 40.4% of total exports.

Colombia Exports

Historically, the value of coffee exports began to decline in 1987 and accelerated with the fall in prices that followed the collapse of the International Coffee Agreement in 1989, an agreement between coffee producing and consuming countries to stabilize coffee prices. .

Starting in 1993, coffee exports recovered somewhat due to the effort led by Colombia to limit the world supply of coffee through an agreement with the World Association of Coffee Producing Countries, but coffee exports subsequently declined and is expected that they continue to be a smaller portion of total exports compared to oil and its derivatives.

Coffee exports have decreased from 2,527 million in 2015 to 2,282 million in 2019, according to preliminary figures from the Banco de la República.

The weighted average price of coffee exported by Colombian producers in 2019 decreased by 5.5% to $ 1.37 per pound in 2019 from an average price of 1.45 per pound in 2018.

Colombia’s export volume of coffee increased by 5.9% in 2019 compared to the volume exported in 2018.

All the products

Colombia’s exports decreased 4.7% in 2019 compared to 2018, mainly due to a 23.9% decrease in coal exports and a 5.2% decline in exports of oil and its derivatives.

Non-traditional exports, including emeralds, increased 1.6%, from $ 14.788 million in 2018 to $ 15.032 million in 2019.

Among industrial exports, the greatest decreases among the categories of specifically identified export products were registered in non-metallic minerals, which decreased by 15.2%, and food, beverages and tobacco, which decreased 4.9 percent.

Exports according to WTO product groups

Exports of goods in 2019 totaled approximately 39,489 million dollars, including oil and its derivatives (40.9% of total exports), coal (14.5% of total exports), coffee (5.8% of total exports), nickel (1.4 % of total exports) and non-traditional exports (38.1% of total exports).