Colombia’s emerging legal cannabis industry exported over $10.8 million worth of cannabis products in 2023 according to recently released stats from ProColombia. ProColombia is a government agency of the Executive Branch of the Government of Colombia in charge of promoting Colombian non-traditional exports, international tourism, and foreign investment in the South American nation.
According to Colombia’s Ministry of Justice and Law, more than 3,000 licenses for the cultivation and production of cannabis have been issued in Colombia so far, with an estimated 864+ hectares of legal cannabis planted and a potential cultivation area of at least 57 thousand hectares.
Of the $10.8 million worth of legal cannabis products exported from Colombia in 2023, 32% went to Brazil, 25% went to Australia, and Copy Rolex another 14% went to Germany. Germany imported a record 31,398 kilograms of medical cannabis products in 2023.
“According to Mónica Hoyos, director of the Observatorio Colombiano de la Industria del Cannabis, who led the internationalization route of medicinal cannabis for companies of the Bogotá Chamber of Commerce last year: Brazil, Australia, Peru and Germany present better conditions for Colombian exports of medicinal cannabis, data that corroborate the information provided by ProColombia.” reported Sechat in its local coverage.
Mónica Hoyos also issued words of caution that the export numbers reported by ProColombia could be lower than what was actually exported from Colombia in 2023 due to various factors.
“From what we have been able to analyze, under-reporting may occur due to issues of tariff classification and export modalities. This situation, for example, has drawn the attention of entities such as the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), which recognized the discrepancies in the hemp export data from its database (Comtrade) and the data from national customs.” stated Hoyos according to Sechat.
Colombia has a long history with the cannabis plant, albeit not always involving a regulated industry. The South American nation legalized medical cannabis and industrial hemp in 2016 and 2021, respectively.
Cannavigia, an international cannabis compliance and production management company, estimates that Colombia’s commercial cannabis cultivators can produce dry cannabis flower for as low as $0.06 per gram, giving it a major advantage over legal industries in other nations where cannabis can cost as much as $2 per gram to produce.
The Colombian export figures for 2023, before any future adjustments, were an 11.3% increase over 2022 when Colombia’s medical cannabis exports amounted to $9.7 million, and a 96% increase compared to 2021.
This article first appeared on Internationalcbc.com and is syndicated here with special permission.
Photo by Flavia Carpio on Unsplash
