Current Privatization Processes In Colombia

The Colombian Government has decided to speed-up the privatization process of the Corporacion Electrica de la Costa, CORELCA. CORELCA is the holding corporation of Colombia's northern coastal electric companies. The difficult financial situation experienced by CORELCA´s distribution companies and their increasing energy wholesale market debt, were the main reasons behind this decision. CORELCA and the distribution companies´ assets will be transferred, separated and incorporated into a generation company, a transmission company and three separate distribution companies. Afterwards these five companies will be privatized. The bidding process was opened in April.

Additionally, the Colombian Government has decided to initiate the privatization process of the national postal service, ADPOSTAL. This is the latest decision on the Government's privatization program which was initiated with the privatization of the financial and electric sectors. The Government wants to improve the company's efficiency by privatizing certain services rendered by ADPOSTAL. The services that are going to be privatized are still unknown. The privatization of ADPOSTAL has been announced several times by the Minister of Communications and by the Director of Public Credit. The Government is taking the necessary steps to hire the international consultants who will be in charged of designing the privatization process.

Prepared by PATRICIA ARRAZOLA from Gomez Pinzon & Asociados, Bogota, Colombia.

The content of this article is intended to provide a general guide but specialist advice should be sought about your specific circumstances.

GOMEZ PINZON & ASOCIADOS
Carrera 9 No. 73-24 Pisos 1,2,3 y 5
Santafe de Bogota, Colombia

Telephone : 571- 3107055/ 5066
Facsimile : 571- 3106646/6657
 Click Contact Link