Thanks to increased security, foreign investment confidence and strong leadership by President Uribe, Colombia's economy grew at its fastest pace in a decade:

"March 31 (Bloomberg)—Colombia's economy expanded last year at its fastest pace in a decade as a strengthening peso and falling interest rates spurred consumer demand.

Gross domestic product, the broadest measure of a country's output of goods and services, expanded 5.1 percent in 2005, following growth of 4.8 percent in 2004, the government said. The economy grew 3.7 percent in the fourth quarter, less than the 5.2 percent median forecast in a Bloomberg survey of 15 economists, after growing 6.4 percent in the third quarter....

...Total investment in Colombia last year rose to 22 percent of GDP, the highest since 1994, from 15 percent in 2002, the year President Alvaro Uribe took office, according to the National Planning Department. Retail sales rose 9.3 percent in the year through December compared with the same period a year earlier, according to the statistics agency."

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