COLOMBIA | Better prices help boost export earnings. Colombia's export earnings in the first 10 months of the year reached US$10.7bn, or 7.8% more than in the same period of last year. Most of the running was done by the `traditional' exports (oil, coal, coffee and ferronickel) which jointly rose by 16.5% to 47% of the total, while `non-traditional' exports increased by only 1.1%.
In most cases it was improved world prices that raised export earnings. For instance, ferronickel achieved a 43.3% increase in earnings on a 13.2% increase in volume; coffee earnings were up 10.5% on a volume increase of 4.8%; and oil earnings rose by 4.1% despite a 13.3% fall in volume. In one significant case, coal, it was a 74.7% volume increase that offset poor prices to achieve a 55.3% increase in earnings.
PERU | Mining contract rescinded. In a decision bound to make waves in `the markets', the Peruvian government last week rescinded the contract with the Canadian firm Manhattan to develop the oil and copper deposits of Tambogrande, in the northern department of Piura. The reason invoked was that the firm had not met a contractual requirement, namely, to demonstrate technical capacity to process 10,000 tonnes per day of ore.
The decision comes after a local protest-movement brought the area to a standstill in November, to press home the argument that the mining operation could jeopardise the area's agricultural production. Tambogrande produces 40% of Peru's lemons and 25% of its mangoes.
VENEZUELA | Return to growth expected in 2004. Finance minister Tobías Nóbrega last week said that economic growth next year will be `no less than 6%'. He had actually written into the draft budget for 2004, approved on Tuesday by the national assembly, a growth assumption of 6.54%. The budget also assumes that inflation will be kept down to 25% (it has accumulated 26.1% in January-November), that oil revenues will finance about a third of the budget, and that debt restructuring will reduce the budget appropriation for debt-servicing from 27% to 17-18%.
Unclear as yet is the impact of the `formalisation' of the black market in foreign exchange, which Nóbrega says he is studying with central-bank experts.
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