Interview with Ricardo Ávila Pinto
Editor-in-Chief of Portafolio
Date: 27th of March 2008
Can you tell us about your newspaper and the group it belongs to?
Casa Editorial El Tiempo is the most important media group of Colombia. Its main product is the newspaper “El Tiempo”, which was published at the beginning of last century for the first time, which means that El Tiempo is about to celebrate its 100th anniversary.
El Tiempo has interests in several types of media. One is its magazines’ department which has been increasing considerably fast, including “Cambio”, which is a weekly magazine.
On the newspaper side El Tiempo also owns Portafolio, a business newspaper, which is the leader in its category. Portafolio started operations 15 years ago as a weekly newspaper. In 1997 it became a daily newspaper from Monday to Friday and two years ago the weekend edition was introduced.
El Tiempo also owns a popular newspaper called ‘Hoy’ as well as regional media. Regarding Internet, El Tiempo’s portals are the largest in Colombia. Additionally, El Tiempo is the owner of the Bogotá channel “City Tv”.
At the end of last year a controlling stake of Casa Editorial El Tiempo was acquired by Spain’s “Grupo Planeta”.
How come Portafolio is the market leader, how does it distinguish itself from other newspapers?
Content, of course. However, part of its success was the introduction of the tabloid format; the quality of the paper is good and has a salmon colour, like almost every financial newspaper in Europe. It also combines business and economical news with analyses and opinions.
Colombia experienced an economic growth of more than 5% for a couple of years now. It is obvious that the economy changed a lot and that Colombia has a lot of success abroad. How would you explain this change?
Colombia has always had the advantage of the huge population of more than 40 million consumers whose potential increased tremendously when the security problems started to be solved. This generated a very interesting economic growth of 6.8 and 7.5% in 2006 and 2007, respectively. Additionally we have also seen a great increase of foreign investment in Colombia which was not present before. In fact, the proportion of foreign investments to Gross Domestic Product was even higher than that of Chile’s. Last year it amounted to 9.000 million dollars and the same numbers are expected for this year. However, looking at the figures for the first three months of 2008, we see an increase of 70% in foreign investment.
Did the improvement of the security play an important role in the economic growth?
Yes I definitely think there is a strong connection between the improvement of security and economic growth. I think that in a way we are creating a virtuous circle; the bigger economic growth, the better and more resources and employment you will get, which causes more security and tranquillity. However, Colombia still has a long way to go to resolve all the security problems. Nevertheless, Colombia has improved tremendously in the last few years.
Did the President Uribe play a big role and could you give some examples of his actions that led to the improvement of the security?
Without a doubt. President Uribe already has been in charge for 5 and half years and is the most popular president of the world, with a popular support of more than 84%. He increased the police forces in every municipality in Colombia and every little town and developed the program of peasant-soldiers in the country, which was fundamental for the improvement of the situation. But I think that he had great success because he was the only one that understood the clear connection between security and economic reactivation.
Colombia has been an agricultural country for many decades. However, a change can be seen and the service sector has become more important. Which are nowadays the most important sectors?
I think that here the same is happening as in the rest of the Latin American countries, which has to do with the increase of the commodity prices. The big growing sectors will be the primary sectors, like is happening right now in Peru, where the mining sector is responsible for more than half of total exports. Without a doubt, in Colombia there will be a revolution in the coal sector. Now Colombia is exporting 65 millions tons of coal and in three years Colombia should export 110 millions tons, which will have a lot of weight on the export figures. The challenge will be that other growing sectors won’t suffer from this increase.
Which are the most attractive sectors for foreign investors?
If we look at where foreign investors have reached so far, we see that mining and extractive industry are very attractive. Also sectors aimed at the buying power of 40 million Colombians, like telecommunications and retail.
If we compare Colombia with other Latin American countries, is Colombia attractive and what is the government doing to attract more foreign investors?
I think that if we look at the economic figures of today, we have the evidence that Colombia is the most attractive country, leaving Peru and Chile behind. The government has defined the “rules of the game” and has established several agreements for legal stability. But at the end, I think that the country itself is selling more than the government.
What about the tourism sector?
When it comes to tourism, it is evident that Colombia still has a long way to go. With 1.2 million tourists last year Colombia does not even appear in the first 50 tourist destinations. The objective is to have four million tourists which I think is possible, but on a longer term. Colombia has three fundamental problems. First of all the currency does not help. Because of the devaluation of the Dollar, Colombia is a more expensive destination than before. Second of all there is a small supply of beds. Someone will find it very hard for example during big events in Bogotá or Cartagena to find accommodation. And the last point still is the security. However, was an increase of 13% in visitors last year, which is important, but there is still a lot to do.
Did because of the economic growth the inequality reduce?
No, Colombia is a poor country and has high poverty indices. 5 years ago Colombia had a poverty rate of 56%. This rate decreased to 45% two years ago, which means that about 4 million Colombians got out of poverty, but also that close to 20 millions Colombians still live in poverty. So one can conclude that a lot has to be done before these people pass to the middle class and that we haven’t accomplished a lot. On the other hand we can look at the trend and see that the poverty is diminishing, which is good of course. We have to continue having an economic growth and social programs in order to keep reducing poverty. However, the average income has increased and we are in a better situation now than 5 years ago.
What is your personal message to our reader?
I think that the fact that you are going to publish a guide about Colombia confirms what I said during this interview. Colombia is a country that disappeared from the map for many years. Nowadays, Colombia is very visible and is a destination for business and tourism |
