Dilema Calling on all "Experts"
In my business i travel quite a bit, but here is my problem. Me and my novia are quite serious and talk like 4 times a day not including text's. Usually when i call her she can see on her caller ID that i am calling from a foreign number, but this time I am traveling to MDE to see NOIVA #2. I told my girl im going to Puerto Rico on business, is there anyway to mask my caller ID, from MDE to CLO? I dont want to call her from my US cell.. way too much $$$. Or should i just get a satellite phone? The rates arent too bad! Or any Ideas will we greatly appreciated..
Interesting article on COL
Adriana Aguirre, who works as a baby sitter in Stamford, Connecticut, sends $500 to Colombia each month for her two children's food and schooling. Since October, she's transferred an extra $200 monthly to buy them a home.
``It's a big sacrifice,'' says Aguirre, 29, who left her hometown of Medellin for the U.S. six years ago. ``But it's all for my family's well-being.''
Colombian officials are encouraging former residents like Aguirre to become investors rather than consumers as a novel way to keep inflation from rising above its 2006 rate of 4.48 percent. The government is sponsoring real estate fairs in the U.S. and Europe to steer expatriates toward buying homes. Other organizations have created programs to help families use so- called remittances from relatives abroad to start businesses.
``The more remittances are channeled toward the purchase of homes and durable goods and the creation of productive projects that help generate employment, the healthier the economy,'' says Daniel Nino, head economist at Bancolombia SA in Bogota. ``This helps take away inflationary pressures stemming from consumer demand.''
Money sent home by Colombians who have lived abroad for more than a year rose to a record $3.3 billion in 2005, more than double the amount of foreign currency generated by coal, the nation's biggest export after oil, according to the central bank. In 2006, remittances were on course to set a new annual high after jumping 19 percent to $2.85 billion in the first nine months. The bank hasn't published full-year figures.
Channeling Resources
``We want to channel these resources toward savings and investment, which help boost growth, instead of consumer spending,'' Foreign Affairs Minister Maria Consuelo Araujo, 35, said in October, the day before she left Bogota for the real estate fair in New York at which Aguirre bought her house.
Colombians have purchased close to $100 million at the real estate fairs, which have been held once a year in Madrid, Miami and New York since 2005, according to the foreign affairs ministry.
At an October fair at Penn Plaza Pavilion in midtown Manhattan, Colombian real estate developers and construction companies offered units in about 500 building projects in 38 cities. Some of the 105 stands at the fair were set up by Colombian banks offering mortgages.
At the fair, Aguirre arranged to buy a 60-square-meter (640- square-foot) home for 39 million pesos ($17,337), and financed the purchase through a $200-a-month mortgage from Bogota-based Red Multibanca Colpatria SA.
Inflation
Colombia needs to contain inflation if economic growth is to continue to be buoyant, says Alberto Ramos, a senior Latin America economist at Goldman Sachs Group Inc. in New York.
While the 4.48 percent increase in consumer prices last year fell within the central bank's target of 4 percent to 5 percent, the bank will probably increase interest rates to prevent strong growth from fueling inflation in 2007, says Ramos.
``The economy needs to slow down so it can maintain a steady pace, before inflation kicks in and hurts growth,'' says Ramos.
Last year the bank raised its benchmark rate six times to 7.5 percent, the highest since March 2002, from 6 percent. Ramos forecasts it will lift its lending rate to 8 percent in 2007.
Colombia grew 7.7 percent in the third quarter of 2006, its fastest pace since 1978, as President Alvaro Uribe's successes in clamping down on drug-financed terrorists encouraged business to expand. The economy grew an average of 3.9 percent a year from 2002, when Uribe took office, through 2005.
Expatriate Remittances
With more than 8 percent of its 41 million citizens living abroad, Colombia was the third-largest recipient of expatriate remittances in Latin America in 2005, according to the Inter- American Development Bank. Ahead of Colombia were Mexico, with $20 billion, and Brazil, with $6 billion. On average, migrants from Latin America send $200 to $300 a month back to their home countries, the Washington-based bank says.
Some Colombians fled their country because they feared for their safety in a nation torn by a four-decade war between the government and guerrillas. Others, like Aguirre, left in search of a better job. Most live in the U.S. or Spain.
In the central province of Quindio, Eliana Ayala and five friends have used funds from relatives living in Spain to set up a company that prepares meat and poultry products.
``We had the idea of creating our small business so we could do more with the money our relatives are sending us than just spending it on our basic needs such as food and clothing,'' Ayala, 29, says as she slices a piece of stuffed chicken.
Aid From Spain
Their company, which is run out of an abandoned hospital, was established with the help of the chamber of commerce of Armenia, the provincial capital, and the city of Madrid. The two organizations set up a project that provides technical and marketing assistance, and awards loans to Quindio residents who receive remittances from Spain and want to set up a business.
About 150 families in Quindio have taken advantage of the program, establishing workshops that produce items ranging from handicrafts and leather goods to fried snacks. The idea is for participants to invest at least 20 percent of the money they receive from abroad in the business.
``Remittances aren't going to last forever, and my husband and I have three small kids to support,'' says Ayala, whose cousin sends her as much as 400,000 pesos every other month. ``The best use I can make of that money is to invest it. It's very satisfying to generate your own income.''
Rebuilding Economy
Such small businesses are helping rebuild Quindio's economy, which was ravaged by a 1999 earthquake that killed about 1,200 people. The disaster was followed in 2001 and 2002 by a plunge in the price of coffee, the province's main agricultural product. By 2003, one in five of Quindio's worker's were without a job, forcing many to seek work elsewhere.
Economic growth under Uribe hasn't stemmed the exodus of workers. Unemployment of 11 percent is among the highest in the region. In the first six months of 2006, the number of Colombians who left their homeland and didn't return rose to 219,876 from 159,353 in the same period of 2003, government figures show.
While many Colombian expatriates say they plan to return to their homeland sometime in the future, they aren't prepared to give up their U.S. and European salaries in the foreseeable future. In Colombia, the minimum monthly wage is 433,700 pesos ($193) compared with about $890 in the U.S., based on a 40-hour work week.
``I just couldn't bring up my kids with what I was earning in Colombia,'' says Aguirre, a divorcee who emigrated in 2000, leaving her son, then six, and daughter, then four, with her mother and sister. Aguirre hasn't returned since.
Where is playboy mansion?
Hey guys,
I will be in Colombia tomorrow. Where is Playboy mansion? and how do I get there?
Also when I am in BAQ where are some good nightclubs and places to meet women? Are there any parlours down here. Thanks
Beware using a phone card"
[QUOTE=MiamiHeatLuver]YOU ARE A GENIUS!!!! I understand Completely! I think it will be better / cheaper to call from a CABINA with a US phone Card than COLOMBIAN phone card. NOW why didn't I think of that? The most important thing is to get the US phone card though, or everything might be in jeopardy, no?[/QUOTE]Be very careful. Make first a test, if you can, with a friend, to check WHAT NUMBER is displayed when you call using that phone card.
I tell you this because usually, when I am abroad, I use a phone credit card issued by my national phone company (I am European). I enter a free (like a 800) number in the country where I am, then I am connected to the network of my country. To dial a number of my country, I enter only the area code, not the country code, because "I am already there". (it is a credit card, because at the end of the month the total amount is billed to my VISA credit card; it is not prepaid).
Well, surprising enough, sometimes the COUNTRY CODE of the place where I am physically does appear on the receiving phone. The system of my telephone company takes the ID of the line from where I am calling and transfer it, in part, to the receiver. Not always, but sometimes.
Be careful. If you say "hi, I am in Texas" but the display on your wife's phone shows a damn 0057, it would be difficult to explain.
Bogota, Medellin, or Cali?
Can someone lend me a few pointers on a first timer to Columbia. Which of these 3 are the best to go. It will be a small group 4-5, and have traveled before to Rio and CR many times. Our next trip is to Argentina and we were hoping to stop in columbia on the way.
Thanks
JK