Soccer balls market in Colombia goes up as Colombia major team

Colombians main sport is soccer and her soccer balls production has increased in the last years. Colombia is not on the top of producers of soccer balls such as China, Pakistan, Thailand, Germany and Belgium, but it is going up each year through her high quality soccer ball called GOLTY and through small families producers located in Monguí municipality (Boyacá region). The total global production of soccer balls was 60 million in 2013 and Colombia did it with 591 thousand; these Colombian soccer balls were taken by local consumers with 92% and by foreigners consumers from Venezuela, Ecuador, Bolivia and Turkey mainly. Moreover, the demand of soccer balls in Colombia has shown an important increase in the last years; per 100 young males in Colombia, there are 6 soccer balls in 2013.

Author: Humberto Bernal,  

Economist,

e-mail: zhumber@gmail.com

Twitter: Humberto_Bernal

It can be download @ PDF

The soccer game is taking the attention around the World because of World Cup and Colombia is not the exception. Therefore, this note deals with soccer balls market in Colombia, so what is the state of this market in Colombia?. To answer this question the local production, international trade and local demand are taken. The main conclusion is Colombia is not on the top of producers of soccer balls as China and Pakistan, but  Colombians demand this type of balls to  be on the top of soccer teams around the World. 

Colombia makes soccer balls for local demand and to export. Colombia increased her production of soccer balls from 303  thousand units in 1995 to 594 thousand in 2013 as figure 1 shows; it means an anual growth average rate of 3.8% between 1995 and 2013. The main producers in Colombia are Escobar y Martínez that began to produce balls in 1950, moreover they make the official soccer balls to Colombian major team called GOLTY; this type of ball GOLTY is the symbol of Colombia soccer and its quality is excellent as many foreigners said. There are other producers such as GERMAN PEÑA that represents soccer balls producers located in the municipality Monguí in Boyacá region. There are other producers located in Cúcuta, Medellín, Cali, Barranquilla and finally in Bogotá as figure 2 shows. 

Figure 1. Soccer balls market in Colombia 1995-2013

(number of soccer balls)

Source: Superintendencia de Sociedades Colombia and Encuesta Anual Manufacturera Colombia.

Figure 2. Soccer balls production places in Colombia 2013

(municipalities)

Source: Superintendencia de Sociedades Colombia and Encuesta Anual Manufacturera Colombia.

The soccer balls production around the World is competitive, but Colombia is getting room. The annual production of soccer balls around the World is about 60 million of balls where China, Pakistan, Thailand, Germany and Belgium lead the supply. In terms of international trade, China and Pakistan share with 68% of total units of soccer balls exported as figure 3 shows. The total volume of soccer balls traded were 22 million of soccer balls in 2013. Although Colombia is not on the top places for exporting this type of balls, she exported 13 thousand units in 2013; the main places that demand Colombian soccer balls are Venezuela with 33% of total soccer balls exported in 2013, Ecuador with 29%, Bolivia with 29% and Turkey with 8%. The balance trade of soccer balls in Colombia is negative; it means that Colombians import more soccer balls than those exported; figure 4 shows this trade, and it shows an important increase to reach a net result of 5,158 units in 2013. The main countries that export soccer balls to Colombia are China with 59% of total soccer balls imported in 2013, Viet Nam with 17%, Pakistan with 8% and Thailand with 7%. 

Figure 3. Main countries where soccer balls are made in 2013

(total production 60 million of units)

Source: Superintendencia de Sociedades Colombia, Encuesta Anual Manufacturera Colombia, TradeMap and United Nations Data Comtrade.

Figure 4. Trade balance for soccer balls in Colombia

(exports minus imports, units of soccer balls)

Source: Superintendencia de Sociedades Colombia, Encuesta Anual Manufacturera Colombia, TradeMap and United Nations Data Comtrade.

The demand of soccer balls has increased in the last years in Colombia. The main sport in Colombia is soccer, nonetheless the Colombia major team was an average team at international  events. However, in the last years Colombia major team has advanced in places on international ranks. This advances are not randomly if one checks the demand of soccer balls in Colombia. Figure 5 shows the per capita demand per 100 of males between 15 and 44 years old in Colombia between 1995 and 2013; as one realises, this demand has increased from 4 soccer balls in 1995 to 6 soccer balls in 2013; therefore, more young Colombians are interested on playing soccer each year. If this interest along government economic support carries on, maybe next generation of Colombia major teams could get more international trophies. 

Figure 5. Per capita demand per 100 of males between 15 and 44 years old in Colombia 1995-2013

(number of soccer balls)

Source: Superintendencia de Sociedades Colombia, Encuesta Anual Manufacturera Colombia, TradeMap and United Nations Data Comtrade.

International immigration in Colombia between Law and violence

International immigration has played an important role in terms of economic development, so countries have to work hard to reach a free mobility around the World. In Colombia case, Middle East people taught to Colombians how to make good business; Europeans taught industrial techniques and educational models and so; Asians taught agriculture techniques and ways of trade; and people from the region taught football techniques, theatre techniques and many other things. However, the immigration legislation in Colombia at the end of XIX century and beginning of XX blocked people from Middle East and Asia mainly, but this legislation was unsuccessful and people from these countries arrived to Colombia and set their prosperous business. Nonetheless, violence in Colombia can be taken as the main factor to miss foreign people in Colombia, the high periods of violence in Colombia pushed people to leave Colombia along with their business. This note validates these two thesis about immigration in Colombia through official data and an econometric model, so we can add these two facts to those pointed by Safford (1965).

Author: Humberto Bernal,  

Economist,

e-mail: zhumber@gmail.com

Twitter: Humberto_Bernal

It can be download @ PDF

Colombia has not  been a country where foreigners have found a good environment to live on such as Argentina, Chile, Paraguay or Brasil. There was a huge international emigration from Europe and Asia at the end of XIX century and beginning of XX century because of economic crisis, religious persecution, overpopulation, and antisemitismo; for instance, Europe faced a deep crisis and overpopulation at the end of XIX century, and it pushed people to look for better economic environment and the America was a rational option; the Ottoman Turkish Empire persecuted and pushed down Syrians and Lebanese, so lots of them decided to emigrate to America; moreover, there were Chinese and Japanese that emigrated because of poor economic environment, overpopulation and to take advantages from international trade in Colombia; finally, there was an important immigration because WWI, WWII and post WWII. However, there were few foreigners that decided to take Colombia as final destination. This issue is explained by international literature as consequence of tropical weather, tropical diseases, difficult geography and poor economic development in terms of infrastructure such as main roads and navigability of rivers, see Safford (1965). Local literature adds other issues such as extreme legislation for immigrants (many papers to fill out), poor wastelands for foreigners assigned by government, low public budget to afford an important immigration and strong legislation for those foreigners that came from Asia, Africa and Eastern Europe see Behaine (1980), Biermann (2001), Rincón (2002) and Vargas and Suaza (2007). Therefore, this note contributes to this issue in two ways; first, the strong local legislation for those asian, africans and eastern europeans between 1931 and 1937 did not block the immigration to Colombia; therefore, the main factor was the political violence in Colombia; this violence has kicked out foreigners from Colombia since 1851 and in deep since 1946. The methodology to validate it is through an econometric model where a Data Panel Model is run.

Legislation between 1931 and 1937 did not contribute to low immigration in Colombia. Colombia was not absent in the international discussion about the type of human race that a country had to reach at the beginning of XX century, so there were norms that blocked the immigration for those who came from Asia, Africa and some countries of Eastern Europe; for example, the Decree 2247 of 1932 and the Decree 148 of 1935 set quotas for foreigners from Armenia, Bulgaria, Egypt, Estonia, Greece, Lithuania, Palestine, Syria, Turkey and other 12 countries; the quota for each country was not above of 20 people per year. Rincón (2002) and Guberek (2009) said that this legislation was unsuccessful because Colombians came from mestizos, there were huge legislation to be known by public servants, many papers to fill out in ports and there was balance discussion in public opinion such as newspaper and politicians still. However, these studies did not show quantitative evidence about international immigration through this period, but fortunately the information was recorded in Colombian census and World Bank Data; Figure 1 shows international immigration in Colombia by region since 1851 according to census and World Bank Data. It is important to highlight that Colombia got hundred of immigrants each year between the end of XIX century and middle of XX century while Argentina, Brasil, Chile, Paraguay and the United States got thousands and millions of immigrants each year; moreover, there was an important decline of foreigners in Colombia between 1938 and 1951 and again at the end of XX century.

Figure 1. International immigrants in Colombia 1851-2011

(number of foreigners in Colombia for each year)

Source: Colombian Census and World Bank Data.

This data can be taken into an econometric model, and the result is a no statistical evidence of immigration Law against Middle East and Asia people; moreover, the violence impact on international immigration is significative. The Random Effect Data Panel Model that lets getting this result is:

where:

i : region:  North America, Europe, Latin America, Middle East and Asia,

t : period of time: 1851, 1928, 1938, 1951, 1960, 1970, 1980, 1990, 2000, 2005, 2011,

y_i,t : it is the volume of immigration according to region: North America, Europe, Latin America, Middle East and Asia. It is in logarithmic levels,

x_1,i,t : it is the value of trade (exports plus imports) from Colombia at US$ 2012 prices. It is in logarithmic levels,

x_2,,i,t : It is a dummy variable that that takes 1 when legislation is active (between 1928-1938) for those immigrants pointed (Middle East and Asia) and 0 otherwise,

x_3,i,t : It is a dummy variable that that takes 1 when violence is highly active (years: 1851, 1951, 1980, 1990, 2000 and 2005) and 0 otherwise,

v_i : it is the heterogeneous effect that is random,

E_i,t : it is a random white noise variable. 

The results are those expected, legislation on immigrant quotas was not successful and violence played an important role in reduction of immigrants in Colombia. The econometric model run is shown in table 1; the main result is the impact due to legislation was no statistically significative, and the sign is contrary; it must be negative, but the result was positive (0.699); therefore quotas legislation between 1931 to 1937 did not have effect on immigration in Colombia. On the other hand, violence escenarios in Colombia pulled down the volume of international immigrants in Colombia; this result is statistical significative (-0.433); therefore, violence in Colombia kicked out foreign people from Colombia. The trade variable is a control variable, it takes into account the economic state which is important for immigrants, it is statically significative and its sign is correct. Moreover, a model without legislation effect is significant also and the estimates do not show high variation from statically point of view.

Table 1. Impact on immigration in Colombia due to legislation and violence 1851-2011

(Random Effect Model)

Variable	Model 1: Inmigration (with legislation effect)	Model 2: Inmigration (without legislation effect)
International Trade	0.594* (0.065)	0.577* (0.064)
Legislation	0.699** (0.532)
Violence	-0.433* (0.203)	-0.494* (0.198)
R2	0.429	0.448
Observations	44	44
Groups	4	4

* Significant at 0.05,

** No significant,

(…) standar deviation. 

Source: Own calculations Stata 13.1.

Bibliography

Behaine, Gladys. 1980. “Anotaciones sobre inmigraciones Libanesas a Colombia”. Revista Javeriana, No. 467, Agosto. Universidad Javeriana, Colombia.

Biermann, Enrique. 2001. Distantes y distintos: los emigrantes alemanes en Colombia 1939-1945. Editorial: Universidad Nacional, Colombia.

Guberek, Simón. 2009 (1974). Yo vi crecer un país. Editorial Siglo del Hombre, Colombia.

Rincón, Natalia. 2002. “Árabes y Judíos en Colombia: Un modelo de integración social”. En revista: Memoria y Sociedad, Vol. 7, No. 13, Noviembre, Bogotá. Universidad Javeriana, Bogotá.

Safford, Frank. 1965. "Foreign and National Enterprise in Nineteenth-Century Colombia”. The Business History Review, Vol. 39, No. 4, Winter, pp 503-526.

Vargas, Pilar and Luz Marina Suza. 2007. Los Árabes en Colombia: del rechazo a la integración.  Segunda Edición. Planeta Ediciones, Colombia.