The peso to dollar rate hit a two-month high, helped by foreign direct investment in Colombia in 2011 reaching $14.8 billion.
At 10:24AM Tuesday local time the Colombian currency traded at 1,864 to the U.S. dollar, up from 1,880.5 on Monday. In the first ten days of 2012, the peso has strengthened by 4%.
Colombia’s central bank announced on January 6 that foreign direct investment (FDI) up to December 23 had totaled $14.8 billion, with over 80% of this invested in the oil and mining sectors.
It far exceeded Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos’s prediction on December 27 that FDI for 2011 would reach $13 billion.
Juan Camilo Santana, analyst at brokerage firm Profesionales de Bolsa, told Bloomberg “[Foreign investment] is expected to continue growing this year, driven by the oil and mining sectors.”
