On October 12th the U.S. Congress passed long-delayed free trade agreements (FTAs, or TLCs in Spanish) with Colombia, South Korea and Panama. While the U.S. rightly claimed that it needed these to be competitive, Colombian president Juan Manuel Santos was much more positive. He promised a permanent 1% increase in Colombia's growth rate, the creation of 250,000 new jobs and a 6% rise in exports.

If this is so, for a country with a projected real GDP growth rate of 4.3%, this could be a BIG deal. At the same time Colombia expects to double its trade with Brazil by 2014 to $5 billion annually--another boost to its economy. The capital for growth is coming from Brazil, which invests mostly in coal and oil in Colombia.

President Juan Manuel Santos plans to sell as much as 10 percent of the government’s stake in Ecopetrol over four years to pay for repairs to infrastructure after flooding from storms last year.

A few months ago Colombia's leading oil company, Ecopetrol (EC) also sold 2.4 trillion Colombian pesos in stock amid a market rout. It seems even in bad times there are plenty of investors for new oil exploration and production.

Does anyone see the connection here? Colombia is now opening as a new gateway to Brazil and the rest of Latin America!!

Read more in the attached weekly update and ...

Happy trading this week!

Rudy

It was another big week in Latin America for the top stocks which bounced back 5-6% last week:

• NII Holdings Inc.(NasdaqGS: NIHD) +6.1%
• Banco Santander - Chile (NYSE:SAN) +5.9%
• Cosan Limited (NYSE:CZZ) +4.5%
• Brasil Telecom S.A. (NYSE:BTM) +4.5%
• MercadoLibre Inc. (NasdaqNM:MELI) +4.5%
• Data date: 10/14/11