News on Relevant Aspects in the Colombian Economy.

About Changes in Interest Rates at the Meetings of the Banco de la República.

There is a calendar, according to information from the Banco de la República, of meetings of its Board of Directors where it is established in which a decision is made to move the interest rate and in which it is not. These dates are previously known to the public and for this year the meetings where decisions about the rate are made are in january, march, april, june, july, september, october and december. In the other months of the year there are no changes in rates.

In this way, today (wednesday january 31) , at the Board meeting they must move the rate but in the month of february there will be no movement. For january 31 , analysts and researchers expect a reduction of 25 or 50 basis points. It will be a decision made by majority since some members, those closest to the government, will lean towards 50 points but others, the independent and more orthodox, will prefer 25 points.

Analysts and think tanks also expect inflation of around 8.4% at the end of january, a result that will be known on february 7. This inflation is lower than the 9.28% at the end of last year, which is in line with the decision by the bank's board to lower the interest rate. But at the february meeting the Board does not can to move the rate but waits until the meeting at the end of march to do so. Therefore, with the information available in march on the effect of the El Niño phenomenon on food and energy prices in the month of february and march itself, the Board will be able to decide whether to keep the rate unchanged or lower it by 25 basis points.

In the month of april, according to the calendar, the Board has the possibility of moving the rate and has the result of march inflation, which if it is downward, there is a possibility that the Board will lower the rate by 25 or 50 points. Analysts estimate that the rate will be between 11% and 12% in april.

Thus successively in the other months of the year, in some the interest rates move and in others they do not and in a year in which, contrary to the previous one, inflation is going down, in the last meeting of the year, december, where the decisions are made about the rate, the Board will have inflation information until november and analysts and researchers expect that in that last meeting the rate will close the year at 8%.

Unemployment rate

The unemployment rate was released today ( january 31) by official sources for the month of December 2.023, which reached 10% after registering 9.3% in november. The national total for the year was 10.2% and for the previous year it was 11.2%.

Thus, the population with work registered 22.864.000 inhabitants in december and the population without work 2.544.000 people. Of the working population, 56.3% are informal, a figure lower than the previous year's figure of 57.4%, but high.

Workers are mainly located in commerce and agriculture with 4.133.000 and 3.114.000 people and later in public administration with 2.673000.

These unemployment results are higher than those of Latin America, whose unemployment rate is 7% and even more so than those of Europe and the United States where they are 6% and 3.7% respectively.