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Colombia Parastatal Management
The government's role in the economy also included the
creation
and operation of state enterprises through either direct
ownership
of companies or the establishment of joint ventures with
private
firms. These enterprises, often referred to as
parastatals, enabled
the state to ensure that policy goals were being met for
the
welfare of the country. Analysts estimated that by the
late 1980s,
the value of total public sector ownership and control of
economic
assets had reached 13 percent of GDP.
State involvement in economic management of parastatals
dated
back to the 1930s and represented some of the earliest
attempts at
development planning. Financial organizations were the
oldest type
of parastatal, founded to create a credit market for
sectors--
especially housing, railroads, and agriculture--that
needed
additional capital. Notable among the earliest such
financial
institutions were the Agricultural Mortgage Bank (Banco
Agrícola
Hipotecario), the Agrarian Bank (Caja de Crédito Agraria),
the
Central Mortgage Bank (Banco Central Hipotecario), and the
Land
Credit Institute (Instituto de Crédito Territorial). In
the 1950s
and 1960s, the government created nonfinancial parastatals
encompassing numerous agricultural commercial and
industrial
entities, such as the Colombian Institute of Agrarian
Reform
(Instituto Colombiano de Reforma Agraria--Incora), the
Colombian
Coal Company (Carbones de Colombia--Carbocol), the
National
Federation of Colombian Coffee Growers (Federación
Nacional de
Cafeteros de Colombia--Fedecafe), and the Colombian
Automotive
Company (Compañía Colombiana Automotriz).
Data as of December 1988
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