The time for bets is over. Now what matters is what the Dane (Colombian entity in charge of all the economical metrics) says about the behavior of the Colombian economy during the first quarter of 2018, a figure that has just been released. The general expectation is that a slight, but unequivocal improvement in the growth rate will be confirmed, after the slump observed during the recent past.
Various indicators suggest that the trend is upward. The trade registered much better numbers than the start of last year, because then the increase in the general VAT rate depressed sales.
The industry also closed positive, although the Easter season fell in March and those business days of less dynamism end up noticing the performance of manufacturing activity.
For its part, oil extraction remained, while that of coal would have increased. The transport of passengers did not fare badly either, while hotel occupancy continues to surpass the previous figures, despite the fact that the number of available beds is the highest in history.
Even so, there are yellow lights. The performance of the financial sector would have been hit by the volatility of the markets and a mediocre behavior of the demand for credit. Agriculture, which was the line to show in 2017, would not seem to have all of them, as evidenced by behaviors such as coffee.
Perhaps the biggest unknown is that of construction. The signals coming from the building sector are not good and on Friday it was learned that the civil works chapter had experienced a significant decline. To use the familiar figure, the impression is that the locomotive of the infrastructure found new obstacles in the road.
However, the expectation is that when adding and subtracting, the increase in the Gross Domestic Product will be higher than 2 percent, which would be an advance of half a point or more compared to last year's record.
