Colombian President Alvaro Uribe Saturday asked the country’s Central Bank to come up with measures to stop the appreciation of the peso against the dollar.
The expensive peso is hurting important Colombian export sectors like that of coffee and flowers in an already difficult time, because of the global economic crisis and a row with neighboring country Venezuela that severely decreased exports to that country.
The President asked the Central Bank to work together with the Ministry of Finance to find ways to minimize the damage done to exports.
According to Uribe, the cheap dollar can not continue to “hurt the citizens and affect the sources of income for an element [the appreciation] that the citizens can not control, an element that often proves catastrophic.”
The peso, confronted by a dollar that has sunk on many international market, reached its highest point in 14 months last week. One dollar is now worth 1,861 pesos against more than 2,500 half a year ago.
