Guillermo Gaviria Correa, the governor of Antioquia, faces some formidable difficulties in his province, not only from a population increasingly frustrated and disillusioned by the seemingly never-ending poverty but also from violent crime.
He says: “It is important to reconstruct the farming economy, not only to overcome the violence but also to create the mechanisms and the companies that would help farmers develop their production.
“The resources must be allocated for farmers to progress and to re-invest, for their children to be educated and for infrastructure to be built to overcome poverty. Sixty percent of the Antioquia population lives in poverty.”

But the governor speaks warmly about Antioquenos, as the inhabitants of the province are known. He says they are adventurous and have a strong work ethic – what he calls the “paisa strength.”
“They are an ingenious people and this has made Antioquia the engine that drives the country. This is the reason behind the growth of Medellin,” he says.
Antioquia has an advantageous location, being “the entrance door from Central America and the exit door to South America.” The governor is particularly anxious to see the Pan-American Highway from the U.S. to Colombia completed.

All that is holding it up is 60 miles of jungle between Panama and Colombia’s road network. “The whole of the Americas could be interconnected, but it is only a lack of money and will that is holding it up,” he adds.
Medellin is a busy manufacturing and commercial city, and many of its companies are now successfully carving out export markets in Caribbean and Andean countries, Central America and even the US.

Sindicato Antioqueno is the flagship conglomerate of the city’s industrial power. It groups together some 150 cement, banking and processed food companies. In recent years it has restructured several companies to meet increasing competition.
Yet Colombia, despite being Latin America’s fifth-biggest economy, with a population of 40 million, has a relatively underdeveloped retail sector. Late last year the green light was given to the merger of Colombia’s two biggest retailers, Almacenes Exito and Cadenalco.
Exito and Cadenalco, both controlled by the Sindicato Antioqueno, have joint assets worth more than $1 billion and half-yearly sales of around $620 million.
Exito already had a 70.7 percent controlling interest in Cadenalco. Exito, which is in turn 26 percent-owned by France’s Casino, has been investing heavily in expansion and last year opened its first store in Venezuela. Exito has 14 stores in Colombia and Cadenalco has 63 under the brand name Ley and five under the name Pomona.

Exito president Gonzalo Restrepo says: “Colombia is a country with many problems, but at the same time it has huge possibilities.”
The country’s leading food manufacturer, Medellin-based Industrias Alimenticias Noel (IAN), makes a wide range of cookies, snacks and processed meats. Carlos Mario Giraldo, IAN’s president, says: “During the past three years we have had important growth. Our main objective is expansion abroad. We believe that by 2005, 50 percent of our business will be derived from exports.”
IAN, in which French firm Danone has a 20 percent stake, is targeting Central America, Caribbean and Andean nations. A further market is the growing Hispanic population in the U.S.