Post-conflict minister Rafael Pardo, acknowledged that coca cultivation will increase in 2017 in an interview conducted by W Radio. The new position was established by the peace agreement between the Colombian government and the FARC.

Colombia’s 2016 inflation was set at 5.75% by the country’s national Central Bank, missing the government-set target for the year but still down from the inflation recorded in 2015.

Colombia was nominated as the “best emerging LGBT tourist destination” for 2017 by the FITUR, an annual International Tourism Trade Fair to be held in Spain later this month.

The Las Lajas Sanctuary, a church located at an altitude of 2,900 meters (9,508 feet) in the Colombian Andes, has become a major draw for tourists, with some calling the neo-Gothic basilica the world’s most beautiful church.

Representatives of the Colombian government and the National Liberation Army (ELN), the Andean nation’s second-largest rebel group, met Friday in Ecuador to initiate contacts that are meant to lead to formal peace talks.