BOGOTA: Colombia's economy expanded 2 percent in the third quarter compared with the same period last year, the government said on Wednesday, as tepid growth continues.
The Andean country has spent two years grappling with the fallout from a recent decline in oil prices and an ongoing drop in domestic consumption.
Agriculture and finance were the top sectors behind growth, expanding by 7.1 percent and 3.2 percent respectively. The mining and energy sector and construction, which have long been key to the country's economic success, both contracted by 2.1 percent, and manufacturing shrank by 0.6 percent.
Latin America's fourth-largest economy accelerated 0.8 percent during the third quarter versus the second, and grew 1.5 percent between January and September, compared with the same period the year before, the government's DANE statistics agency said.
The figures showed a recovery when compared with growth during the same quarter last year, Carlos Felipe Prada, the deputy director of DANE, said.
"The evidence that we have allows us to affirm that we have a recovery," he said.
Expansion was 1.2 percent during the third quarter of 2016.
In a bid to stimulate growth, the central bank has cut 275 basis points from the interest rate since December, even as it struggled to contain inflation. The seven-member bank board surprised the market in October by trimming 25 basis points from the rate.
The bank's technical team estimates gross domestic product will grow 1.6 percent this year. The board revised upward its 2018 economic growth estimate to 2.7 percent from an earlier prediction of 2.4 percent at its last meeting.
Those estimates justify a more expansionist monetary policy, though future cuts to the interest rate will depend on inflation consolidating at 3 percent, board member Juan Pablo Zarate told Reuters last week.
The October rate cut puts borrowing costs in "lightly expansionist" territory, Zarate added.
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