Colombia's oil revenue will fall dramatically in 2016

Federsarrollo director Leonardo Villar, one of the most important economists in Colombia, told Colombian daily El Espectador that government revenues would be severely affected in 2016 by the fall in oil prices. According to Villar, the Colombian government will receive $20 trillion pesos less than originally expected due to lower oil production and prices.

The Fedesarrollo director warned that the drop in revenue will have a real impact on governmental spending, saying, “This has huge implications for Government spending in all of its activities, for example security, social policy, education, and others. In addition, it requires that some of the adjustment come from higher taxes during the next few years.” The El Espectador piece went on to quote a different expert as casting doubt on the ability of the other sectors of the Colombian economy to pick up the slack.

In other oil-related news, María Angélica Jara, the spokesperson for Ecopetrol’s shareholder relations office, visited the Colombian town of Barrancabermeja to explain the stock’s poor performance over the last year. She said that the collapse in the company’s stock price was due to the similar collapse in oil prices, and emphasized that Ecopetrol is still a very solid company. Nonetheless, the market is dynamic and variable, and there will always be a strong degree of risk.

There was an update in the controversy over former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s change in her stance on the U.S.-Colombia free trade agreement. Former Colombian Ambassador to the U.S. and Colombian Defense Minister Gabriel Silva defended Hillary Clinton to CNN, saying, “I saw no evidence that any part of the treaty was impacted by any contribution made to the Clinton Foundation or any other group in the United States.”