By Monica Garcia
BOGOTA, Dec 13 (Reuters) - Heavy rains and flooding in Colombia have caused up to ${esc.dollar}5.2 billion in damages, and the government is studying additional measures to help finance rebuilding efforts, President Juan Manuel Santos said.
Colombia is facing what the government calls its worst natural disaster as bad weather, flooding and rains have killed more than 240 people, driven nearly 2 million more from their homes, and damaged roadways, crops and livestock.
The rain damages will pressure Santos&${esc.hash}39; government as he looks to introduce a raft of reforms to help Colombia battle its fiscal deficit and move the Andean country toward regaining the investment-grade credit rating it lost in a 1990s financial crisis.
"It is estimated that the cost of this tragedy could reach up to 10 trillion pesos (${esc.dollar}5.2 billion)," the presidency said in a statement late Sunday after Santos held a cabinet meeting.
Colombia is studying additional measures to generate more funding after the bad winter, including introducing temporary taxes, selling government shares in state oil firm Ecopetrol, and seeking more multilateral loans.
The government has declared a temporary state of emergency for 30 days that allow Santos and Congress more flexibility to secure extra resources to recover from the disaster.
"Within those options, we are looking at an optimum mix of sources to generate close to the 10 trillion pesos," Finance Minister Juan Carlos Echeverry told reporters.
He would not comment on the impact the rain damages will have on the country&${esc.hash}39;s fiscal plan or the deficit, which is estimated at 4.4 percent of gross domestic product this year for the national central government.
Santos said the government had already transferred around ${esc.dollar}550 million from the budget to a catastrophe fund.
The Inter-American Development Bank, the multilateral lender, has offered Colombia a credit of ${esc.dollar}350 million to assist in managing the disaster after bad weather hurt the coffee, coal and agriculture sectors [ID:nN18293986].
The government has already said that damage to farm land and roadway infrastructure will push up food and transport costs and raise inflation, but not so much as to change an official target of 2 to 4 percent this year. [ID:nN06201617] (Writing by Patrick Markey in Bogota, Editing by Chizu Nomiyama and Leslie Adler)
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