Economy & Business - February 2024

It was too good to be true.... Read More

Ecuador’s President Daniel Noboa is considering postponing a ban on oil drilling in the Yasuní national park which was approved in a referendum last August.... Read More

The ink hadn’t even dried on contracts between foreign oil majors and Venezuela’s state oil company Petróleos de Venezuela (Pdvsa) when the dream of returning to some of the world’s largest hydrocarbon reserves seemed to vanish into thin air.... Read More

Traffic jams are a burden on economic growth, as residents of Colombia’s capital Bogotá will know all too well.... Read More

PERU | Finance minister replaced.... Read More

The approval of President Gabriel Boric’s flagship pension reform by Chile’s chamber of deputies in late January was a bittersweet victory for the 38-year-old former student leader, as the lower house approved the base text of the reform almost 15 months after it was presented but rejected two key proposals that would have financed a more equitable pensions system and created a public pension fund manager.... Read More

Brazil has announced a long-awaited industrial development plan with a R$300bn (US$60bn) budget for the three years left in President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva’s term.... Read More

Another Latin American airline filed for bankruptcy in January amid ongoing financial troubles.... Read More

PARAGUAY | First international bond issuance in local currency.... Read More

On 12 January the Nicaraguan government led by President Daniel Ortega seized the assets of CISA Exportadora, the largest buyer of the country’s coffee, after its parent company, Netherlands-headquartered Mercon Coffee Group, declared bankruptcy the previous month and plunged the vital sector into crisis.... Read More

Goods exports from Costa Rica were worth a total US$18.24bn in 2023, according to the country’s official export promotion agency (Procomer), a 15.5% increase on the previous year, with the medical devices sector continuing its strong recent growth.... Read More

In December, international credit ratings agencies Moody’s and Standard & Poor’s (S&P) raised their rating on Suriname debt following successful restructuring talks with private sector creditors.... Read More

Two private companies said in December that they were working together to release mosquitoes across the Caribbean that have been bred with a bacterium that attacks the dengue virus.... Read More

The world’s largest – and brand new – passenger cruise ship, the ‘Icon of the Seas’ set out from Miami on 27 January for a seven-night maiden tour of the eastern Caribbean taking in St Thomas and St Kitts & Nevis.... Read More

HONDURAS | Private sector highlights new EU deforestation export rules.... Read More

Although now in the last of his six years in office, on 5 February Mexico’s left-wing populist president, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, launched a 20-point reform programme which could have far-reaching implications for the operating environment of businesses in the country.... Read More

On 31 January Mexico’s supreme court (SCJN) ruled that the government’s 2021 electricity reform law was unconstitutional, delivering a serious political defeat to President Andrés Manuel López Obrador.... Read More

One of the bright spots of Mexico’s strong economic performance in 2023, when compared to the rest of the region, were record flows of foreign direct investment (FDI), which reached nearly US$33bn in the first three quarters of the year.... Read More

If all goes as planned, the controversial Tren Maya tourist railway project championed by Mexico’s President Andrés Manuel López Obrador will be completed by the end of February, after the first section was inaugurated on 15 December, and a second stretch on 31 December.... Read More

MEXICO | Industrial production down in monthly terms.... Read More