Colombia poverty declined in 2021, but still above pre-pandemic levels

BOGOTA (Reuters) - Poverty levels in Colombia fell last year versus 2020, amid an economic recovery in the Andean country, but have yet to return to levels seen before the coronavirus pandemic, the government said on Tuesday.

The share of Colombians living in poverty fell to 39.3% in 2021, compared with 42.5% in 2020, the government's DANE statistics agency said. In 2019 the figure stood at 35.7%.

"Although we have seen significant recoveries between 2020 and 2021, they have not been enough for people's real per capita income to be higher in real terms than in 2019," DANE director Juan Daniel Oviedo said in a virtual press conference.

Extreme poverty in 2021 retreated to 12.2%, from 15.1% the previous year, the agency added.

The change in poverty rates came in tandem with economic recovery: Latin America's fourth-largest economy expanded by 10.6% last year.

Some 19.6 million people in Colombia, out of a population of 50 million, were in poverty at the end of 2021, while 6.1 million lived in extreme poverty, DANE said.

Last year, 1.4 million people left poverty, while 1.3 million left extreme poverty, the agency added.

Poverty in Colombia's urban areas, home to the majority of the population, closed last year at around 37.8%, while extreme poverty was 10.3%.

The DANE agency defines poverty as those surviving on some $3 per day, while those in extreme poverty live on $1.36 a day or less.

(Reporting by Nelson Bocanegra; Writing by Oliver Griffin; Editing by Leslie Adler)