Colombia

After years of internal difficulties that held back this rich nation both politically and economically, the last five years have seen Colombia make massive advances and finally take advantage of their position as one of South America’s potential regional powers.  The biggest Spanish-speaking country on the continent is a great potential market for investors, with a well-educated and diverse workforce and well-established connections both with their regional neighbours and the strong economies of Mexico and United States further north.

One advantage Colombia enjoys over many of its South American counterparts is a diversity of economic and business centres. Alongside the capital Bogotá, cities such as Medellin, Cali and Barranquilla are powerful in their own right and contribute to a federalisation of investment activity not seen in the likes of Argentina or Venezuela, where Buenos Aires and Caracas dominate the national agendas.

The economy is growing in leaps and bounds thanks to a stabilisation in the conflict between the government and opposition militias, and an important milestone was reached in 2012 when the country’s Gross National Product overtook Argentina’s to become the second-biggest in South America. Colombia is known as one of the world’s biggest coffee producers, and the nation’s most famous crop, renowned for its quality and flavour, is exported to all four corners of the globe. Other natural resources such as oil and natural gas are also important components of the economy, which kept up impressive growth rates throughout the global financial crisis.