Colombia is a free market economy with major commercial and investment ties to the United States. Transition from a highly regulated economy has been underway for more than a decade.

There are many different kinds of industries, and they are usually divided into different classes or sectors. The primary sector of industry is agriculture, mining and raw material extraction. The secondary sector of industry is manufacturing - which is what is colloquially meant by the word "industry". The tertiary sector of industry is service production. Sometimes one talks about a quaternary sector of industry, consisting of intellectual services.

Industrial processes are procedures involving chemical or mechanical steps to aid in the manufacture of an item or items, usually carried out on a very large scale.

Industrial processes are the key components of heavy industry.

Most processes make the production of an otherwise rare material vastly cheaper, thus changing it into a commodity; i.e. the process makes it economically feasible for society to use the material on a large scale. One of the best examples of this is the change in aluminium from prices more expensive than silver to its use in recyclable/disposable beverage containers.

An optical fiber is a glass or plastic fiber designed to guide light along its length by confining as much light as possible in a propagating form. In fibers with large core diameter, the confinement is based on total internal reflection. In smaller diameter core fibers, (widely used for most communication links longer than 200 meters) the confinement relies on establishing a waveguide. Fiber optics is the overlap of applied science and engineering concerned with such optical fibers. Optical fibers are widely used in fiber-optic communication, which permits transmission over longer distances and at higher data rates than other forms of wired and wireless communications. They are also used to form sensors, and in a variety of other applications.

The word hotel derives from the French hôtel, which referred to a French version of a townhouse or any other building seeing frequent visitors, not a place offering accommodation. A hotel is an establishment that provides paid lodging, usually on a short-term basis. Hotels often provide a number of additional guest services such as a restaurant, a swimming pool or childcare.