Business Coffee Break: CARIBBEAN REGION

FROM BACK...

This project emerged as an idea for practicing English in a comfortable, ralaxing and easy way, taking in count the difficulties that English learners have trying to get envolved with it in a Spanish context, and as our field is management and business, what better than talks about the most important economic topics aside the best friend a colombian can have: a cup of coffee.

This way, the first Business Coffee break was organized on febreury 17th with the presence of the organizers: Lilia Mendoza, Delanis Caicedo, Cristina Perez y Carlos Rebolledo.

About BCB

Around the world, there are an estimated 1 Billion people learning English. There are many reasons why learning English has seen exponential growth in recent years, but it all boils down to the fact that English is the “global language” of business, politics, international relations, culture, and entertainment. Because of this, students and teachers from faculty of management, economic and accounting sciences decided to share knowledge and experiences of the most important business topics in this foreign language, just with a cup of coffee...

CARIBBEAN REGION

10:15 / Publicado por Dela Caicedo /

The Caribbean Region or Caribbean Coast Region is a Natural Region of Colombia mainly composed of eight Departments located contiguous to the Caribbean Sea. The area covers a total land area of 132,288 km including the San Andres Island in the Caribbean sea and corresponding to approximately 1/10 of the total territory of Colombia. The Caribbean region of Colombia is home to approximately 9 million people according to the Colombian Census 2005. [*]

The area is characterized for having a massif plain that extends from the Colombian Andean Mountain range, surrounds the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta mountain range and covers the Guajira Peninsula to border the Caribbean sea. In the western side of the region there is also a relative low altitude mountain range, the Montes de Maria which are also separate from the Andean mountain range. The Caribbean region is crossed by many rivers and contains one of the largest marshes in Colombia, the Cienaga Grande de Santa Marta marsh among many others. The main river is the Magdalena River which is fully navigable in the region and a major path for the flow of shipments from and for inland Colombia. The Madgalena river has numerous sub basins within its basin.

The Caribbean region coast extends from the Gulf of Uraba to the Gulf of Venezuela with the main port cities of Barranquilla and Cartagena bordering it. The administration of the region is covered by eight department governments; Atlantico, Bolivar, Cesar, Sucre, Cordoba, Magdalena, La Guajira and San Andres y Providencia. These 8 departments also cover approximately 182 municipalities, 1093corregimientos and 493 caserios according to the 2005 Census by DANE. Most of its inhabitants speak a dialect of Caribbean Spanish with variations within its subregions.

THE ECONOMY...

The economy of the Caribbean region is based mainly in the exploitation of natural resources such coal and natural gas, salt, agricultural products mainly bananas, coffee and oil palm, cotton, tropical fruits among many other products, livestock raising which is practiced extensively in almost all the territory, in Cordoba, Sucre, Atlantico, Magdalena, Bolivar, Cesar and southern La Guajira. There is also a service industry and a local import-export industry mainly in the ports of Cartagena, Barranquilla and Santa Marta. Another major part of the economy is tourism, which concentrates also in Cartagena, Barranquilla and Santa Marta along with San Andres and Providencia Islands.

The Caribbean region is the most critical situation, with a prevalence of 45.1%, followed by Bogotá with 36.3%, coinciding these two, as most growth delay of 0 to 4 years.