The number of plants has doubled by the mid-1980s, and their average size has grown considerably. About 20 percent of the workforce is employed in industry. The main industries are textiles (using local cotton and wools), apparel and footwear, food processing, tobacco, iron and steel (partly using local coal and iron ore), metal products, automobile assembly, chemicals, oil refining and petrochemical products, cement, wood pulp, and paper.
About 70 per cent of the country's industry is concentrated and around the three main urban centers -Bogota, Medellin, and Cali. Barranquilla and its vecinity are another industrial center.
The country's main trading partners are the United States (36% of exports and 38% of imports in 1988), Germany (18 and 5 percent), Japan (5 and 11 percent) and France (3 and 4.4 per cent).