BOGOTA, May 15 (Reuters) - Colombia's economy grew 0.7% year-on-year in the first quarter, the government's DANE statistics agency said on Wednesday, meeting market expectations in a Reuters poll.
Growth was 2.7% in the first quarter of 2023.
Expansion between January and March was driven by the agriculture sector, which grew 5.5%, public spending and administration which grew 5.3%, and entertainment, which registered growth of 5.2%, said Piedad Urdinola, director of government statistics agency DANE.
The utilities sector registered 4.5% growth, while the manufacturing suffered a sharp contraction of 5.9% and the finance sector shrank by 3%.
Private investment was down 13.4% in the first three months of the year, while the economy shrank 1.5% in March, DANE said.
The economy grew 1.1% in the first quarter of this year versus the fourth quarter of 2023, slightly below 1.2% growth predicted by analysts.
Colombia's economy grew a sluggish 0.6% in 2023 amid high interest rates and inflation pressures, in a sharp decline from growth of 7.3% in 2022 as the country bounced back from the coronavirus pandemic.
Analysts forecast Colombia's economy will grow 1.3% this year amid stubborn inflation, which has led the country's central bank to cut 150 basis points from its benchmark interest rate.
At its meeting last month, the bank's board cut the interest rate to 11.75%.
The government expects economic growth to hit
1.5%
this year, while the technical team of Colombia's central bank has forecast an expansion of 1.4%.
While analysts expect Colombia's economy to grow 2.65% in 2025, the central bank's technical team expects GDP to expand 3.2%. (Reporting by Carlos Vargas and Nelson Bocanerga Writing by Julia Symmes Cobb, Editing by Nick Zieminski)
