Trade statistics for the first eight months of the calendar year show coffee bringing in US$90.1m. Coffee is the most important of El Salvador's `traditional' exports, but this year it has accounted for only 4.3% of total export earnings (WR-03-38).
The 2002-03 coffee harvest yielded about 1.3m bags (of 60 kilos), which made it the worst in 40 years. This made a strong impact on the employment scene, as the number of jobs available, 52,000, was down by 22%. This is unlikely to change, as the CSC is predicting for 2003-04 an even smaller harvest, of 1.25m bags.
JAMAICA | Debt burden squeezing fiscal accounts. The finance ministry has been making much of August fiscal accounts showing tax revenues up by 21%, ahead of the 15% increase in expenditure. This notwithstanding, US investment bankers Bear Stearns say the figures show `a country under continued extreme fiscal pressure [where] current trends do not look sustainable.' The bank has focused particularly on the weight of debt-servicing on the fiscal accounts: interest, which amounts to 47% of total expenditure, is taking up 67% of revenues. As put by the bank's senior managing director, Gregory Fisher, `We know of no other country with these ratios.'
CUBA | Brazil offers export-tied debt deal. During Brazilian President Lula da Silva's recent visit to Cuba, a framework agreement was signed on the bilateral debt of US$40m: the two countries expressed `willingness to widen the mechanism for the settlement of the debt, based on assigning to that purpose a percentage of the earnings from [Cuban] exports to Brazil.' No figure was divulged. Contrary to pre-visit reports, bilateral cooperation agreements did not include a special line of credit from Brazil's development bank, BNDES; bank officials said that Brazilian exporters would have, as usual, access to regular BNDES lines.
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