Within the framework of version 58 of the Banking Convention organized by Asobancaria, the financial superintendent, César Ferrari spoke about the panorama of financial markets, investment and the lack of competitiveness that currently exists in the system.
The leader of the financial entity began talking about investment, highlighting that In Colombia there is little domestic savings given excess consumption, which translates into reduced investment.
“It is that if there is little investment, there is little capital expansion, and if there is little capital expansion, then there is little possibility of producing more, and then a little investment slows down the growth possibilities of the economy in Colombia“Ferrari explained.
He also made a comparison with Asian countries, where he assured that investment and liquidity is greater than the local one.a topic from which he started to talk about the lack of competitiveness.
“The problem is that there is a positive relationship between means of payment and credit, and one of the reasons why we have little credit is because we have little means of payment now., There is another more serious problem, it is that we have a lack of competitiveness among companies,” said Ferrari..
The above, for him, “is a combination of low prices at which they can sell and high costs at which they have to face, and That has to do with very high financial costs, electricity prices, tavery volatile exchange ratevery reduced ownership, which is a consequence of the fact that there has been little investment in the economy for a long time,” he added.
Due to lack of competence, the superintendent referred to the lack of greater attributes, such as free entry and exit of agents, transparent prices, and symmetry of information, which causes shallow markets, credits/GDP 43%, China 185%; expensive with interest rates three times higher than in China or the US, and not very inclusive with 36% of adults with access to credit.
“All this lack of competitiveness is clearly reflected within our trade balance, We have a trade balance with a deficit of 8% of GDP, which is one of the highestat least at this level. “That is a problem, it is teaching us that there is low competitiveness,” said Ferrari..
He then spoke about the “reality of the financial system”, highlighting that “We have shallow financial markets, very expensive for clients and that is a consequence of the lack of competition in the system and when we see the reality of the credit markets we return to the same story, we have a credit market that in total grants credits for $686 billion.”
However, he gave a positive outlook regarding commercial establishments, since according to him they have begun to evolve favorably. “We have authorized the construction of two companies and of course, This translates into an evolution of credit from credit establishments and we have seen how credit has increased every year in Colombia. both in volume and as a percentage of GDP,” he indicated.
