Colombia’s economy grew 3.5% in the second quarter compared with the same three months a year earlier, the national statistics agency DANE reported Aug. 18 — a sharp pickup from the 1.9% recorded in that period of 2025, and faster than most banks had penciled in. Against the first quarter, output rose 1.3%, and growth for the first half of the year came in at 2.9%. Banco de la República had projected 3.2% and Bancolombia 3.1%; only Banco de Bogotá called it exactly right at 3.5%.
The number lands eleven days into the presidency of Abelardo De La Espriella, who was sworn in Aug. 7 in Cali for a four-year term after defeating Iván Cepeda by roughly 250,000 votes, about one percentage point.
Here is the part that complicates the celebration: most of the growth was paid for by the government he inherited. The fastest-expanding piece of the economy was public administration, defense, education and health, up 10% on the year, with public administration and defense alone rising 15.1%. Government consumption spending jumped 12.2%. Household spending helped too — final consumption was up 4.4% — but the state did the heavy lifting. De La Espriella campaigned on shrinking that state by as much as 40%, and his finance minister, Miguel Gomez, has said the fiscal deficit is running at 7% to 8% of national output, higher than the outgoing government acknowledged. Cutting spending that hard would remove the engine that just produced the 3.5%.
The farms tell a different story. Agriculture shrank 2.1%, with crop output down 4.4% — bananas, plantains, flowers and cassava leading the decline. Information and communications slipped 0.1%. Exports fell 1.0% while imports climbed 7.5%.
That matters at American checkout counters. Colombia supplies about 20% of the coffee shipped to the United States, second only to Brazil, and its growers provide roughly 60% of the cut flowers sold here, sending nearly 80% of their production to the American market. Since July 24, an additional U.S. duty on Colombian flowers, apparel and manufactured goods has stood at 12.5%, up from 10%, though coffee, bananas, oil and coal remain excluded. Shrinking farm output plus a higher border tax is the arithmetic behind more expensive roses next Valentine’s Day.
The new administration’s answer is to change what drives the economy rather than keep funding it from the treasury. Gomez has said the government will bring a growth-focused tax overhaul, and De La Espriella has pledged austerity alongside a revival of the oil and gas sector. Vice President José Manuel Restrepo, a former finance minister, is leading a push to deepen trade, investment and security ties with Washington after years of friction between Bogotá and the Trump administration.
For now the numbers give the new president room he did not have to earn. The test comes when the spending that produced them starts getting cut.
JBizNews Desk | Bogotá
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