Legal And Political Environment Of Columbia And How It Impacts Business

Columbia is a country in the South America situated at the northwestern part. It is the only republic with two coasts in South America which gives strategic shipping advantages in international economy of today. It has the prevalent inhabitants with roughly 48 million people. Spanish is it official language, and the Colombian peso the national currency. The government gets estranged into the decision-making, judicial and lawmaking branches. The President of the republic of Columbia leads the decision-making branch, a congress lawmaking branch, and judicial has a supreme court.

Columbia is fourth largest economy republic in Latin America subsequent to Brazil, Mexico, and Argentina. The republic is politically stable. The political structure is encouraging to doing trade. As a result, Columbia become a free market financial system with main marketable and venture ties to the United States, the rest of Latin America, Asia, and Europe. However, this has been aided by key security upgrading, stable financial, enlargement, and reasonable inflation. Due to this, the middle class has increased to 35% of the population and it is still growing. Additionally, the republic has benefited from growth in GDP of 4.7% per year for the last ten years. However, the country projection for 2015 is 3.5%, though the investments get anticipated to as well decrease.

From a legal approach, Colombia, like the majority countries of South American, has a civil regulation system where the major basis of law is printed law. Conversely, since 1991, when the Constitution of the Colombian formed the Constitutional Court, constitutional patterns have steadily turned out to be part of the Colombian lawful system (Bruce, 2009). The Columbian Constitutional court is in control of protecting the Columbian Constitution. The Constitutional court in addition watches over the Tutela which defend persons against infringements of basic rights as affirmed in the Article 86 of the Colombian Constitution. Persons, corporations, the government itself, and still judicial ruling can get filed against Tutela (Delaney, 2008).

The lawful system in Columbia is favorable to doing commerce. As a result, from doingbusiness.org, Columbia has received the following scores: Ease of doing Business Rank 34, protecting minority investor 12, Registering Property 42, paying taxes 150, starting a Business 84, Trading across borders 111, Dealing with Construction Permits 61, Getting Electricity 92, Getting Credit 2, Enforcing contracts 180, and Resolving insolvency 28 (World Bank, 2013). The score indicates that Columbia is a state that is favorable to doing business. Furthermore, the scores are attracting national and international investor’s in the country.

Corruption is unlawful. To the British states or somebody who is who is customarily occupant in the UK, a body included in the UK or a Scottish affiliation, it is illegal to corrupt wherever in the world. However, in 2014, the Transparency International corruption perception index graded Columbia as position 94 in the world. The issue of corruption is an elevated precedence to barely 2.9% of the people interrogated against hostility which is a high precedence to 31.49% and joblessness which is an elevated precedence to 20.7% (Transparency International, 2014). Other information from Transparency International reveals that the issue of corruption is mainly severe in the political arena, even though it is also there in business. Additionally, some of elevated profile cases, first and foremost concerning building projects and local government establishment have in recent times been taken to trial.

Corruption in the modern Columbia takes place habitually at the echelon of business flanked by politicians and executives with private corporations and contractors. The lack of moral conduct on two sides, private persons or associations and politicians have effected in a culture renowned as “serrucho” (saw) in Colombia. However, this culture is more or less the custom for persons to corrupt politicians in turn to get approved agreements and where politicians append commissions and additional costs for their individual advantage. Other causes of bribery appear from the consequence of privatization of government possessed organizations in which the earnings get utilized by persons for their individual prosperity.

It got exposed by an investigate done by the University of Externado that corruption is one of the major factors that makes doing business a hard problem in Columbia. It also revealed that 91% of capitalists deem that there are commerce proprietors that disburse backhander. 16.92% deems that a magnate will present a backhander and out of 28.4% of capitalists that got inquired for favoritism by a government bureaucrat, just 8.52% criticized it to the authorities in an effectual manner.

It is clear that political stability is a significant in pointer for businesses, owing to its link with business environments. Columbia enjoying political stability over and over again gives preferable business environment for corporations, since good supremacy makes possible improvements and investments. Additionally, Columbia legal system has also assisted in creating conducive business environment by setting rules that protect the both local and international investors. However, corruption, although it being dealt with it, it has created unfavorable business environment. As a result, for Columbia to be the most conducive environment for business, it has to put some measures that will help curb corruption which is a major threat to entrepreneurs.

Get Your Custom Paper From Professional Writers. 100% Plagiarism Free, No AI Generated Content and Good Grade Guarantee. We Have Experts In All Subjects.

Place Your Order Now
Scroll to Top