Cocaine overtakes oil as Colombia's top export, according to EAFIT University

A study by Universidad EAFIT, reported by the outlet Valora Analitik, says the cocaine business generated estimated revenue of $16.5 billion in 2024, surpassing the $15 billion earned from formal oil exports over the same period.

These estimates of illicit financial flows are not part of the foreign trade recorded by customs and do not bring formal foreign currency into the central bank, unlike the official trade data published by the National Administrative Department of Statistics (DANE). The academic study notes that sales from the sector accounted for 4.4% of Colombia's gross domestic product in 2024, up from 0.8% a decade earlier, while domestic production rose from fewer than 300 tons in 2013 to about 3,000 tons in 2024.

In the breakdown of Colombia's other traditional foreign trade sectors, coal totaled $7.1 billion, legal gold exports reached $4.1 billion and illegal gold totaled $3.6 billion, according to data reported by Valora Analitik. The research also highlights that Colombia produces about 70% of the cocaine exported worldwide.

From an economic standpoint, the flow of this illegal economy operates outside the formal tax system, meaning it generates no tax revenue for the state and does not add to international reserves in the way a regulated export does. The price chain also illustrates how value is distributed in international markets: the coca leaf is paid $468 per kilogram at its origin, while the product can reach $78,100 per kilogram for the final consumer in Europe, with intermediate stages in laboratories, export routes and transit through countries such as Mexico and the United States.

Archive, 2016. Container ship at the port of Cartagena, Colombia. Photo: Joe Ross, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons.