A Proposal to Issue SDR-Denominated Treasury Bonds: The Case for Colombia
Latin America is today in a critical, and at the same time potentially favorable, position to take one of these actions. The political homogeneity of most national governments can revive interest in regional integration and attempt to build a bloc with ambitions to be a global player in a future multi-polar system. Despite a systematic stop and go trajectory, regional integration in Latin America has solid historical roots (from Kemmerer’s mission between the two World Wars) and, pending the construction of more robust regional institutions, a renewed common strategy towards global multilateralism may prove successful. Hence the time might be ripe for a proposal regarding the issuing of SDR-denominated Treasury bonds in one or more Latin American countries. A modest initiative, in quantitative terms, by a small country in a key area of the world could provide the trigger for future action in the same direction, helping to develop a liquid market for SDRs-denominated bonds, thereby contributing to relaunching multilateralism worldwide. Colombia, in particular, could fit this agenda. The recent change in the political majority in the government of the country, the growth dynamics experienced in recent decades, and its financial weakness may provide incentives for an initiative aimed at strengthening the country’s credibility on global financial markets. To illustrate the case, we will first briefly recall the pioneering antecedent of Italian ecu-denominated T-bonds issued in 1982; in the second section we describe the macroeconomic situation of Colombia, before providing some concluding remarks.
