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It will invest USD 25 million for GLP Miguel Concha Manso; after purchasing 70% of Colombian company Inversiones GLP, Chile's company will reach 45% of the liquefied gas market in Colombia in two years.

By purchasing the firm Plexa S.A., Vidagas de Occidente and Almacenadora de Gas de Occidente (at US $17.29 million), Gasco has 14 percent of the market.

"The Colombian market amounts to 700 thousand tons. We have 14 percent, and the idea is to have a growing market of 40 to 45 percent. Hopefully this year or next year", said Gerardo Cood, Gasco's general manager.

The firm has planned to invest nearly 75 million dollars this year, which will be distributed in equal parts to expand the liquefied gas and natural gas sector.

As regards the company's billing in 2009, the shareholders assembly indicated that the company had a profit of US $72 million. In the liquefied petroleum gas sector, 360 thousand tons were sold, which is 15 percent more than in 2008.

As for natural gas, it was reported that Metrogas (a Gasco subsidiary) reached a client base of 450,517; 278 of which are industries. As regards this business - which decreased due to the gas crisis of 2007, when Argentina cut off supplies to Chile-, through Metrogas, Cood said they had already recovered most of the 500 clients that had reconverted their plants after the cut: "Many of them reconverted permanently, and due to the level of consumption, stopped being considered industrial clients. We have 300, and we should go up to 350 in the first half of the year, thus recovering almost all our clients".

Metrogas Gerardo Cood, Gasco's general manager, said the company recovered almost all the industrial clients it lost after Argentina cut off the natural gas supply.

Multinationals consider country an IT service center, according to analyst

BN Americas – América Economía

A significant number of foreign companies will set their sights on Colombia as an IT Service Center, said Frost & Sullivan analyst, Jennyfer Velez to BNamericas.

The international companies that have opened stores over the last few years include Chilean systems integrator Sonda and the Latin American broadband supplier Diveo, but Velez says the line of interested companies goes all the way from Latin America to India.

"You can see the expansion of Cobiscorp, an Ecuadorian company", she pointed out. "I am also familiar with Mann-India, which is company from India that started operating in the Caribbean, and it is expanding throughout Latin America".

In addition, Emergia, a Spanish company specializing in contact centers and business process outsourcing, has opened a new contact center in Manizales, with the advantages of a special free trade zone. The company began operations last month in association with People Contact, a public call center in Manizales. According to Emergia, Colombia was chosen to continue with the company's expansion in Latin America.

Velez stressed the fact that these companies are using Colombia to export services throughout Latin America, particularly to Peru.

"Colombia is definitely the focus of many multinationals outside Latin America, not only because of its telecommunications infrastructure, but due to its submarine cables (...) and geography in general, because the country is the central point of the entire continent", she said.

Colombia's IT market, which has not been penetrated a great deal, and greater stability represent other factors, she explained.

In an interview with BNamericas in 2009, Globant's CEO, Argentinean IT solution and externalization service provider, Martin Migoya, said Colombia had the potential to become the next major actor of the Latin American externalization market.

The executive also minimized the potential threats represented by Colombia's internal issues, such as conflicts with guerrilla groups like the FARC.

MARKET PROJECTIONS

Frost & Sullivan expects Colombia's general IT service market to grow 17% this year. Among the most wanted IT services include IT security and the externalization of infrastructure. Adopting IT services will be more stable among large-sized companies, followed by the medium ones.

Financial and telecommunications sectors will lead the way as far as adopting them in general, indicated Velez, pointing out that the first will seek CRM-related services, while adopting SOA and consultancy will be the interest of the latter. Stricter regulations in both industries will also be an important factor in their adoption.

On the other hand, government agencies are reluctant to adopt IT services. Velez attributed this trend to a lack of IT culture in the public sector, in addition to the fear associated with externalizing important information to third parties.

"Although it has a great deal of information to take care of and it can outsource, the government only does so with one part and they prefer to keep the other part in-house", she sustained. "In the Armed Forces, they outsource very little core or sensitive information".

The analyst also pointed out that there are regulations that restrict government spending on IT during the months prior to elections, which will be held in May.

The most advanced IT markets in Latin America are Brazil, followed by Mexico, Chile, Argentina and, last but not least, Colombia, according to the analyst.

"We are still at an immature stage", she said.