Caribbean Coast, the golden gate of ‘nearshoring’

In recent years, the Caribbean region of Colombia has witnessed great advances in infrastructure, business fabric and investment that have boosted the quality of life of its inhabitants, without neglecting efforts to combat its most important challenges.

(More security and connectivity, Anato’s request to Petro).

Their outstanding performance in vaccination against covid-19 between the end of 2020 and 2021, it allowed it to lead a process of economic reactivation in the country, which allowed real GDP growth of 12.4% higher than 2020 and 5% higher than 2019.
“Which means that, in 2021, not only did the economy recover from the results during the pandemic, but it also obtained better results than the pre-pandemic periods”said Vicky Osorio, executive director of ProBarranquilla.

About the first quarter of 2022, the dynamism of the Atlantic went hand in hand with national progress. “Particularly, retail trade, with 20.1% per year, and the manufacturing industry, which grew 8.8% per year, had outstanding performances in this period in the Atlantic,” said Manuel Fernández Ariza, executive president of the Chamber of Commerce of Barranquilla.

(Tourism as the central axis of the economy, objective of the Petro government).

However, in this period there has also been a significant advance in inflation in the region, according to Oriana Álvarez, executive director of the Fundesarrollo think tank. “Being made up of tourist cities, food inflation has had a rapid transmission to other economic activities such as restaurants and hotels. The annual inflation until June for the region was 11% while the national was 9%”.

Arrival of investments

With the economic reactivation that the city is experiencing, so are investment flows after a period of slowdown such as 2020.
In this, the role of the Caribbean region and its different capital cities as a golden gate to nearshoring becomes key, the strategies for reestablishing companies in American territory to be closer to regional value chains.

ProBarranquilla points out that in 2021, with the economic reopening, foreign investment increased by 15%, which went from US$233 million to US$269 million, while the number of projects grew from 24 to 33.

Among these, the first metropolitan shopping center, Parque Allegra, stands out, with an investment amount of more than US$100 million.

(Delegates from Latin America get ready for Trade Mission in Florida).

Also the arrival of the Marriott hotel chain (US$30 million) and the Caribe Aventura amusement park (US$20 million).

In this sense, it has been identified service sector as one of those with the greatest investment potentialespecially in areas such as IT and BPO.

The metalworking sector represented, for its part, 39% of the landed projects, especially in nearshoring, with the case of the firm StepUp Andamios. “Examples like this ratify the potential of the Colombian Caribbean for the relocation of companies,” said the executive director of ProBarranquilla.

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