With a market of more than 11 million people and a sound and diversified economy, Bogota Region is a crucial hub in Latin America for doing business.
In like manner, the city stands out for several factors that are relevant at the time of making investment decisions, such as its regulations, incentives, tax conditions, and the ability for businesses to articulate into global value chains. With respect to this, Colombia has one of the most competitive free trade zone regimes of the region, and Bogota is the city in the country with the greatest number of these specialized delimited geographic areas for commerce. The capital has 6 free trade zones comprising over 2,000,000 m², connected to the main access ways of the city, and equipped with comprehensive services and utilities to enable and facilitate operations in their premises.
Free trade zones in the Bogota Region
Source: Invest in Bogota.
Note: The IFOU and the El Dorado free trade zones are not included here
because they are considered special purpose free trade zones.
The tax benefits of these free trade zones are related to aspects such as the purchase of capital assets for business operations, the hiring of personnel with disabilities, the taking care of the environment, as well as scientific, technological, innovation, and cultural activities. There is in addition the law on incentives for mega-investments, and, at a sector level, incentives for the carrying out of the activities in the orange economy (creative industries) and agricultural sectors.
On the other hand, market dynamics and e-commerce in the capital are favored by a top-level technological infrastructure that facilitates international connections, quicker data transmissions, and stable connectivity.
Number of submarine cables in Latin America (2021)
Source: https://www.submarinecablemap.com/
On top of the above, the city has the center for arbitration and conciliation of the Chamber of Commerce of Bogota, a body availed by the Constitution and made to resolve disputes at the corporate level. This body was ranked in 2018 as the best arbitration institution of Latin America according to Global Arbitration Review, and it was ranked in 2020 –for the third year in a row– as the most influential arbitration center of the region.