VENEZUELA | Car sales dramatically down. Sales of new cars in Venezuela (an eloquent indicator of consumer spending in the more affluent sectors of society) were in the first seven months of this year 64% lower than in the same period of 2002. Still, the trend seems to be bending, since July sales were down by 46% on the comparable month last year. Cavenez, the auto industry's chamber, blames the general economic contraction and exchange controls.
PERU | Getting people to pay taxes. Prime minister Beatriz Merino says she intends to get to grips with an old Peruvian problem: that society as a whole pays very little tax. The total tax burden has been oscillating between 12% and 12.5% of GDP - well under half Brazils' rate - for the past 20 years.
Merino says the government will introduce legislation designed to increase that proportion to 14% of GDP next year. The longer-term target, she says, is a ratio of 16%. Merino is not enamoured of the 19% sales tax approved before she took office last June, and prefers a progressive system in which the government `taxes more those who have more.'
ECUADOR | Bending over to please IMF. Economy minister Mauricio Pozo has said the government committed itself to submitting to congress, before the Fund begins its first assessment of performance under the existing agreement, a package of agreed reforms still pending implementation.
Among the things the IMF would like to see is a lifting - this year - of the politically sensitive subsidy for cooking gas. Another IMF aim is the transfer of electricity and telecommunications utilities to the private sector. Both of these things are opposed by the indigenous party, Pachakutik, that has just withdrawn from the ruling coalition. On both points, the unions and social organisations are also ranged against the government.
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