Colombia’s Business Leaders Travel to Choco to Support Earthquake Recovery

The visit by some of Colombia’s most powerful business leaders to Chocó, on Colombia’s Pacific coast, this Monday marks a new chapter in the response to the tragedy caused by the earthquake on August 10.

Alejandro Santo Domingo, Luis Carlos Sarmiento Angulo, Jaime and Gabriel Gilinski, David Velez, and other leaders of the country’s largest business groups will accompany President Abelardo De la Espriella in Quibdo, the regional capital, to establish a recovery roadmap for the department.

The meeting comes nearly a month after the magnitude 7.4 earthquake, whose epicenter was in San Jose del Palmar and which had a particularly severe impact on Choco. Beyond rebuilding homes, roads, hospitals, and schools, the discussion raises a fundamental question: whether the tragedy can become an opportunity to transform one of Colombia’s historically poorest and most neglected regions.

Governor Nubia Carolina Cordoba has insisted precisely that the department cannot return to the conditions it was in before the earthquake.

Colombia’s business leaders travel to Choco to support earthquake recovery

The delegation brings together a large part of the country’s private economic power. Alejandro Santo Domingo represents Valorem and one of Colombia’s most traditional business families. Luis Carlos Sarmiento Angulo, founder of Grupo Aval, is one of the leading figures in the financial and infrastructure sectors.

Jaime and Gabriel Gilinski, owners of Grupo Gilinski, have a strong presence in banking and other sectors of the economy, including Semana magazine, while David Velez, founder of Nubank, represents the rise of a new generation of Colombian entrepreneurs linked to technology and digital finance.

Representatives of other major conglomerates will also attend, including Organizacion Ardila Lulle, as well as Juan Carlos Mora of Bancolombia; Fuad Char of Grupo Olimpica; Cesar Caicedo of Colombina; Christian Daes of Tecnoglass; and Miguel Cortés Kotal of Grupo Bolivar.

The presence of this group reflects the scale the government wants to give the reconstruction effort and its intention to bring capital and business expertise into an emergency that far exceeds the fiscal and administrative capabilities of local authorities.

The relationship between the government and business leaders was forged weeks ago. On August 22, De la Espriella met with several of these leaders in Barranquilla and secured, among other agreements, a reduction by Grupo Aval, Gilinski, and Grupo Bolivar of mortgage loan interest rates for earthquake victims to an effective annual rate of 8%.

At that same meeting, the idea emerged of moving the working session to Choco to design a comprehensive recovery plan for Colombia’s poorest department and one that has traditionally received the least benefit from state investment.

“Really, tomorrow is going to be a very important day for the department of Choco. September 7 is going to be a historic day for us because we believe in that national commitment that the private sector has signed in its own handwriting and that will surely be reaffirmed tomorrow,” the regional governor said yesterday regarding this Monday’s visit.

“Not only to rebuild what was there — that is not the objective of the department of Choco — but to rebuild in order to improve, rebuild to restore dignity to the lives of the people of Choco, rebuild to move forward,” she said.

Cordoba also announced that “the intention here is to be able to propose — and that is why we have already prepared a plan — not only reconstruction, but also the mechanisms for economic, infrastructure, and social development that will ensure that the department of Choco moves forward.”

An alliance to rebuild a forgotten department

The visit takes on special significance because of Choco’s historical conditions. For decades, the department has ranked among the territories with the highest poverty levels and lowest development indicators in the country, with enormous deficits in infrastructure, healthcare, education, connectivity, and public services. That is why reconstruction after the earthquake is not being framed solely as an emergency response.

The government itself has acknowledged that Choco’s proportional impact is particularly high and has spoken of the need for a “Marshall Plan” for the region. The national reconstruction effort resulting from the earthquake was initially estimated at more than 30 trillion pesos (approximately US$9.5 billion), of which 24.5 trillion pesos (approximately US$7.7 billion) would correspond to buildings and 5.5 trillion pesos (approximately US$1.8 billion) to infrastructure.

In this context, the joint presence of the president and the country’s leading business leaders could become the starting point for a large-scale public-private partnership. The idea is for the state to provide resources, coordination, and institutional capacity, while the private sector contributes investment, financing, construction, and productive projects capable of generating jobs and economic activity.

The challenge will be to ensure that this cooperation goes beyond donations and rebuilding what was destroyed. Governor Córdoba has specifically called for a structural transformation that would use the emergency as an opportunity to close long-standing gaps.

Monday’s gathering will therefore be a test of this new relationship between the country’s political and economic powers. For the government, it represents an opportunity to turn the private sector into a strategic partner in the reconstruction effort. For business leaders, it means bringing their investment capacity to a region that for decades has received far less capital and attention than it needs.

Actualización de cifras | Sismo en San José del Palmar, Chocó (7,4 Mw).

La #UNGRD entrega el balance con corte al 7 de septiembre de 2026 – 6:30 a.m.

📍Balance nacional: 16 departamentos y 498 municipios afectados; 296.738 familias y 466.709 personas afectadas.

Población: 331… pic.twitter.com/v2ock83eDl

— UNGRD🇨🇴 (@UNGRD) September 7, 2026