Among productive sectors, the driving force in the second quarter was mining, boosted largely by a 77% expansion of coal output.
COLOMBIA | Unemployment rising. Open unemployment in Colombia in August reached 14.8%, half a percentage point more than in July; the proportion of underemployed fell from 33.8% to 33.1%. Just over half the country's 3m unemployed are in the country's 13 biggest urban centres, where the jobless rate is 17.1% and that of underemployment, 33.2%.
VENEZUELA | `Upturn next year'. It is not only the government that is predicting economic recovery in 2004. Merrill Lynch's vice-president of strategy for Latin America, Robert Berges, said last week that there would be `important recovery' next year, probably `in the order of 6% GDP [growth].' He spoke after hearing from the head of Cadivi, the exchange-control agency, a report on how the allocation of dollars has been accelerated.
Cadivi chief Adina Bastidas said the agency had approved requests for US$6.25bn since controls were introduced in February; 87% of those filed. Actual disbursements were of only US$1.4bn. Central bank director Domingo Maza recently put the disbursements at US$900m for February-July (WR-03-38).
ECUADOR | Petroecuador output still sliding. Lack of investment is being blamed for the continuing decline in production at the state oil company, Petroecuador. Its current output is 205,000 barrels per day, as against 210,000bpd at the beginning of the year and 237,000bpd at the beginning of 2002. Private companies are currently producing 250,000bpd.
So troubled are Petroecuador's finances that it is saying it will continue to pump its heavy oil through the state-owned Sote pipeline instead of the purpose-built OCP duct, which is privately operated and will therefore have to be paid. The idea of building OCP was to free Sote for pumping the more valuable light oils, and create extra capacity that would remove the main bottleneck on Amazonian oil production.
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