During 2021 the devaluation of the Colombian peso against the US dollar was almost 16%. The Representative Market Rate closed last year at $ 3,981.16, compared to $ 3,432.5 at the end of 2020. That is, in all of 2021, the peso devalued $ 548.66.
Many factors affect peso fluctuations, including several of an international nature. But there is an element of analysis that has been concentrating the attention of public opinion: the measurable relationship between the incumbent president and the devaluation. Which president devalued the country the most during his tenure? How did they receive the coin when they took possession, and how did they deliver it when he finished his administration?
A beginning of the year with a dollar above $ 4,000
In the first week of 2022, the dollar exceeded the barrier of $ 4,000 and the TRM already reached a maximum of the year of $ 4,084.11 last Wednesday, the highest since March 26, 2020, when it was certified at $ 4,086.34 .
The dollar in the spot, that is, the most representative market of Set-FX due to its high trading volumes and the average price observed in the market at the close of trading, this year also reached a maximum of $ 4,105.50, the Monday of last week.
It was very close to its all-time high of $ 4,230, also reached in March 2020, when the covid-19 pandemic broke out.
The explanation for this marked devaluation at the beginning of 2022, according to analysts, has to do with the Ómicron variant, which took the financial market by surprise, as well as the container crisis linked to the health emergency, in addition to the probable increase in interest rates by central banks around the world in response to inflationary pressures.
You may read: Colombia’s main opposition force allowed to take part in 2022 elections
The ranking by presidents in the last three decades
So far in the government of President Iván Duque Márquez, since August 7, 2018, the dollar in Colombia has risen $ 1,144.60, that is to say that the peso has depreciated almost 40% when compared to today’s TRM, which It is $ 4,043.46 compared to what Duque received in 2018, $ 2,898.86.
However, Iván Duque’s has not been the presidential term with the greatest devaluation of the peso. During the eight years of Juan Manuel Santos’ government, the dollar rose $ 1,083.40, but the devaluation was almost 60%.
However, the highest devaluation in the last 30 years occurred during the presidency of Andrés Pastrana, with a 95.66% drop in the peso against the dollar, going from $ 1,364.90, when he was appointed head of state in 1998 , to $ 2,670.61 in August 2002.
In the second place among the largest devaluations by presidential term in Colombia is the case of Ernesto Samper, president between 1994 and 1998. In those years, the dollar registered an increase of 68%; the price went from $ 811.91 to $ 1,364.90, accumulating an increase of $ 552.99.
Further back in the historical review of presidential periods contrasted with the devaluation, in the government of César Gaviria the Colombian currency yielded 54.6% against the dollar, when it did not exceed $ 1,000. Gaviria assumed the Presidency with a dollar at $ 525.05 and left office with the dollar reaching $ 811.91.
In these three decades there was also another side of the coin. Measuring Álvaro Uribe’s eight years, between 2002 and 2010, the bottom line is that there was no devaluation, but rather a revaluation of the Colombian peso. In other words, in his period the price of the dollar fell by $ 855.15. It went from $ 2,670.61 in 2002 to $ 1,815.46 in 2010, when he left the presidency. Although this revaluation was explained at the time by the financial crisis of 2008, which hit global markets hard and brought with it other consequences for the country.
Source: La República