Economy Cali and Valle del Cauca are one of Colombia’s main economic axis points being national and international economic exchange. The City is an indispensable step to / from the south and the border with Ecuador, and is connected to the world via the sea port of Buenaventura. The economic transformation of Cali and Valle del Cauca in the twentieth century and its crisis of the late century, and the outlook before the new century have been the subject of profound analysis of financial and academic institutions. This section is based on the analysis and recommendations of the Cali Colombia – Toward a City Development and Strategy published by the World Bank in 2002, and the Regional Economic Situation Reports (ICER) published quarterly by the DANE. Edificio Banco de Occidente Traditionally, Cali and the department have been space for the estate, the same as during the colonial time outside with the mines, the backbone of production.In the early twentieth century the city’s economy was concentrated in sugar production, based on an agricultural model in which large tracts of land were cultivated with minimum use of manpower. As a result, few families owned vast tracts of land in one of the most fertile regions of the country. This was an important factor in determining power relations and the organization of the city through the twentieth century. During the period 1910-1930 the city’s economy shifted its focus from the agricultural model to become a commercial node national level through the development of basic infrastructure such as construction of the railway to Buenaventura and the creation of the department of Valle del Cauca Cali designated as its capital.Although Cali and Valle del Cauca industrial revolution did not begin until the third decade of the twentieth century, some companies had already begun to cement the region’s industrial development, such as graphic arts company Carvajal y Cia (which began operations in 1904). In 1929 there is the creation of Soaps Varela Brothers in the 1930s, other industries began to grow in large scale factories soda and beer, the publisher and cigarettes. Less momentum clothing companies are also textiles, chemicals, chocolate, building materials, leather and furniture. In the 1940s, Cali and was no longer just a point of trade and its economy was focused on the industry. A few years before starting the decade began a major investment of foreign capital with the establishment of many factories and multinational example is Croydon in 1937, Cementos del Valle in 1939, Carton Colombia in 1941, Goodyear and Colgate-Palmolive in 1941 .Then came the establishment of other multinationals like General CEAT (Centelsa) in 1955, and pharmaceutical laboratories were located in the Cauca Valley between 1940 and 1960, as Tecnoqu micas and Baxter. Center of Cali, where lies much of the financial sector. The city’s industrial boom has attracted waves of immigration in the 1950s and 1960s. In these decades there are significant partnerships between public and private sectors, as the productive sector support to programs in business administration at the Universidad del Valle. The growth of the University training professionals and technologists, as well as infrastructure development, were decisive for the further development of industry and commerce in the Valle del Cauca.This trend continued in the 1970s and the early years of the next decade, public investment in infrastructure reached significant levels benefiting not only the productive sector but also the growing population, this resulted in Cali and Valle del Cauca models development to continue throughout the country. In the 1980s, before the relative laxity of the state drug trafficking became a common and quick riches. Drug profits had a strong influence on the economy of the city. The money ofdubious origin soon infected many institutions and public and private companies. Money laundering generated an economic boom that sharply declined in the mid 1990s when the central government declared war against drug trafficking. The economic recession of the late twentieth century began to take shape.Besides the war on drugs, was added the fragmentation of city resources, lack of continuity in the development plans of government to the next, and lack of human and fiscal resources needed to implement the plans of the mayors. All this created a climate of distrust among the population, industry and the regional government.