What Jumps Out: All About Papa Smurf

In these days of fake news, tribalism, and rampant social networks, the story of the fallen narco criminal ‘Papa Smurf’ is the gift that keeps on giving. Whilst originally the story revolved around his illegally gained money finding its way into Petro’s election campaign, before subsequently being returned and then disappearing on the route, there is also a lot of speculation about whether the previous presidential administrations were also in bed with the blue man with a beautiful white beard. As usual in Colombia, there is probably involvement on both sides, and the full truth isn’t convenient for anyone. That said, in a week when the history of the Ukrainian war was altered, the world is pretty much the same.

The big economic headline was Q4 GDP from Departamento Administrativo Nacional de Estadística — DANE Colombia, which was at (2.3%) to the top of expectations, according to Fedesarrollo. That is a 0.6% increase QoQ. The biggest contributions were from commerce/transport (+4.4%), public sector (+4%) and agriculture (+6.5%). The underperformance was from mining which dropped 5.9% driven by weak coal numbers. This brought us to a full-year GDP growth of 1.7%—very much as expected by the same analysts who are predicting 2.6% for 2025 which would be a solid number.

Elsewhere, Ecopetrol announced its latest reserve data. Oil now stands at 7.6 years (little changed) whilst there was a drop to 6.7 years for gas—combining the two there was a marginal increase when compared to 2023. Finally, total production of oil or equivalent rose to 250 million barrels in 2024—the highest in 9 years. The sector is in flux and work needs to be done, but still not the disaster often reported.

More chaos with the pension reform, as the constitutional court received 57 lawsuits against the government. All this does is jam up the court and stop the sector from getting on with life. Amidst all this chaos, the Peso has had a decent week thus far ($4098) and remains one of the best-performing currencies in 2025—albeit off a low base.

Have a great day.

Roops.

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Headline Image Credit: hangela from Pixabay.