Industry

The Country's main industries include textiles and clothing, steel mills, chemicals, petrochemicals, plastics, leather, graphics arts, food and beverages.

Manufacturing

The manufacturing industries in Colombia, stimulated in the 1950s by the establishment of high protective tariffs on imports, are generally small-scale enterprises, producing for the domestic market. Together, they account for about 21 percent of Colombia's yearly national output. Cotton-spinning mills, principally in the cities of Barranquilla, Manizales, Medellín, and Samacá, are important manufacturing establishments. Other industries include the manufacture of foodstuffs, tobacco products, iron and steel, and transportation equipment. Chemical products are becoming increasingly important, and footwear, Panama hats, and glassware are made.

Energy

Colombia has many hydroelectric installations, and in the late 1980s about three-fourths of its electricity was produced by such facilities. A drought in 1992 brought about electricity rationing in much of the country. Consequently the government initiated the construction of new thermoelectric power plants and improved natural gas distribution to urban residences. In the early 1990s the country's installed electricity producing capacity was some 10.2 million kilowatts, and its annual output of electricity was approximately 36 billion kilowatt-hours.

MANUFACTURING:
Beer: 11,973,000 hectoliters
Cigarettes: 18,053,000,000
Sawnwood: 721,000 cubic meters
Paper & Paperboard:501,000 metric tons
Tires: 1,915,000
Nitrogenous Fertilizer: 95,700 metric tons
Phosphate Fertilizer: 29,000 metric tons
Cement: 6,312,000 metric tons
Iron and Steel: 777,000 metric tons
Pig Iron: 352,000 metric tons
Lead: 2,200 metric tons
Zinc: 300 metric tons
Radios: 3,000
Televisions: 135,000

ENERGY:
Hard Coal: 17,552,000 metric tons
Crude Petroleum: 29,117,000 metric tons coal equivalent
Natural Gas: 5,388,000 metric tons coal equivalent
Motor Gasoline: 4,978,000 metric tons coal equivalent
Electricity: 4,251,000 metric tons coal equivalent
Energy Consumption: 773 kwh per capita

ESMERALD:
Emerald, the most valuable of GEMS, is a transparent variety of the beryllium aluminosilicate mineral BERYL that owes its bright green color to small amounts of chromic oxide. Large, flawless stones are very rare. Lacking the fire and brilliance of DIAMOND, emerald is usually step cut, with elongated narrow facets and an oblong table, to enhance its color. Emeralds have been obtained from the SCHISTS of Cleopatra's mines, rediscovered in 1818, in the Sikait-Zubara region of Egypt. Vast quantities were taken from South America during the Spanish conquest, but the original mines have since been lost. The finest stones come from Colombia , where they are mined from the calcite veining bituminous limestone at Muzo, Cosauez, and Somondoco, Bogota; these deposits were discovered in the late 1500s.
Emeralds were discovered in 1830 in mica schists near Sverdlovsk, in Russia's Ural Mountains. They have been produced artificially by using a process developed by Carroll F. Chatham in the 1930s. The emerald (Greek: smaragdos) of the ancients probably referred to a number of distinct species of green stones; that mentioned in the Old Testament probably was carbuncle garnet. Superstitions abound concerning the emerald, BIRTHSTONE for May: it supposedly soothes the eyes, preserves chastity, cures dysentery, prevents epilepsy, drives away evil spirits, and facilitates childbirth.

Mining

Petroleum and gold are Colombia's chief mineral products. A number of other minerals are extracted, including silver, emeralds, platinum, copper, nickel, coal, and natural gas. The petroleum operations are under control of a national petroleum company and several foreign-owned concessions. Production of crude petroleum is centered in the Magdalena River valley, about 650 km (about 400 mi) from the Caribbean, and in the region between the Cordillera Oriental and Venezuela; it amounted to about 160.4 million barrels per year in the early 1990s. Much of Colombia's oil is shipped to Curaçao for refining. New oil reserves discovered about 200 km (about 125 mi) east of Bogotá are expected to provide Colombia with energy self-sufficiency into the 21st century, with annual extraction from the reserves of 180 million barrels anticipated by the late 1990s. Colombia is one of the world's leading exporters of coal. Two-thirds of an annual production of 21.7 million metric tons comes from a single open-pit mine, the world's largest, on the Guajira Peninsula. Some 4.7 billion cu m (166 billion cu ft) of natural gas was produced annually in the early 1990s.

Gold, mined in Colombia since pre-Columbian times, is found principally in the department of Antioquía and to a lesser extent in the departments of Cauca, Caldas, Nariño, Tolima, and Chocó. Colombia is the leading gold producer of South America, with an output exceeding 1 million troy oz in the early 1990s. Platinum, discovered in Colombia in 1735, is found in the gold-bearing sands of the San Juan and Atrato river basins. Colombia has the largest platinum deposits in the world, producing about 51,500 troy oz annually. The chief emerald-mining centers are the Muzo and Chiver mines. Still other mineral products are lead, manganese, zinc, mercury, mica, phosphates, and sulfur.