Commercial Relations between Colombia and China
The Republic of Colombia and the People’s Republic of China officially established diplomatic relations in 1980. Almost forty years later, an important binational relationship has flourished and continues to grow, particularly in terms of trade. This article takes a close look at the commercial relationship between China and Colombia in recent years.
Commercial Relations between Colombia and China
Today, the main imports into Colombia are refined petroleum, cars & airplanes, industrial equipment, and manufactured consumer goods, such as computers and paper products. Furthermore, as of 2015, China is Colombia’s second import partner, after the United States (30%), accounting for 19% of all imports coming into the country. Likewise, Colombia’s main export products are petroleum (crude & refined), coal, coffee, gold, emeralds, nickel, flowers, bananas, and apparel. Within the exports sector, China is the country’s third most important destination, purchasing 6.1% of all the Colombian goods sold internationally. During 2015, Colombia’s trade balance was in the red by US$14.2 billion with a total of US$37.5 billion in exports and US$51.7 billion in imports. That year, Colombia exported approximately US$10.4 billion worth of goods towards the United States and almost US$2.3 billion to China. Simultaneously, in 2015, Colombia imported some US$15.4 billion from the United States and another US$9.75 billion from China.
Back in the year 2000, the United States purchased 49% of Colombia’s exports, while China was the destination of less than 0.25% of all the goods that the South American nation sold internationally. Similarly, in 2000, China was the origin for merely 2.9% of all goods imported into Colombia. Fifteen years later, Colombia’s trade has changed significantly. In 2015, Colombia’s main export towards China was crude petroleum valued at US$1.8 billion, which represented 79% of Colombia’s exports towards China that year. Nevertheless, this represents a decrease from 2014, when crude petroleum totaled 90% of the value of Colombia’s exports towards China, with a total of US$5.2 billion. Likewise, in 2013, 84% of Colombia’s export income from China was from crude petroleum, totaling US$4.3 billion. Amongst the key takeaways from this dataset is that, currently, one of China’s main interests in Colombia is the purchase of energy resources and fossil fuels (i.e. petroleum). Even though it might seem as if China purchased much less petroleum in 2015 than it did in 2014 and 2013, another takeaway is that China’s trade balance with Colombia is dependent upon international petroleum prices. In reality, China imported a similar quantity of barrels of oil from Colombia between 2013 and 2015. However, the average price per barrel in 2013 was of US$100 and it was approximately US$95 in 2014. Meanwhile, by 2015, the price per oil barrel had decreased to an average of less than US$50.
On the other hand, Colombia’s main imports from China are transmitters and receivers for televisions and radio sets. In 2015, Colombia purchased some US$1.3 billion worth of these products from China, equating to 14% of the goods that the Asian Giant sold to the South American nation. Colombia’s second largest import from China are computers and central processing units (CPUs), with a grand total for 2015 that was valued at almost US$700 million.
(Read more about Mexico’s Economic and Agricultural Outlook)