An alliance was recently announced between the world-famous real estate baron Donald Trump and a Colombian architectural firm to build the Trump Ocean Club skyscraper towards the end of 2006, with pre-construction prices starting from 290,000 dollars.



Bocagrande has become the centre of the most ambitious investment projects in Cartagena.
What is particularly interesting is that these types of projects revolve around a new trend in global markets to serve the growing number of retirees from the United States and Europe, who are seeking alternatives to traditional retirement destinations such as Florida, California and coastal cities in Spain.

The reason a large number of retirees from the first world are looking at Latin America as a destination is that, in addition to its nice weather, the region offers reasonable prices, especially for medical services. In this way, by moving their residences to countries such as Mexico, Costa Rica or Honduras, they may enjoy a standard of living they would not be able to achieve on a retirement pension in their home countries.

Panama, for example, offers different incentives to attract this type of visitor, such as exemption from taxes on real estate and on imported vehicles.

By 2011 some 77 million Americans are expected to retire, and many of them will be looking to Latin America as a good retirement destination. According to the news magazine América Economía, this is a potential market estimated at 2,000 million dollars per year, or 33 thousand dollars per visitor.

This represents a huge opportunity for Colombia to begin capturing a part of this flow of immigrants, not necessarily through tax incentives, but by offering adequate infrastructure and creating different services targeted at this segment that is searching for a better lifestyle.

The high standards of medical care in the country are already well known, and together with the improvement in the levels of security and the different tourist destinations which could attract this type of project, Colombia could enter the competition for this market and in this way not only receive the dollars from Colombian expatriates, but also from foreigners who wish to make Colombia their retirement home.

By: Miguel Posada
Investment Analyst at PROEXPORT