Latin American Economy & Business - August 2018 (ISSN 1741-7430)

Foreign direct investment (FDI) flowing into Latin America and the Caribbean fell for the third year running in 2017, down by 3.6% to US$161.7bn, according to a report published in early July by the UN’s Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (Eclac).... Read More

When MegaCenter opened its doors to the public in 2010, Jordi Chaparros, president of the Spanish consortium which led the venture, proudly boasted that the project had used up enough construction materials to leave La Paz, Bolivia’s de-facto capital, without cement for a year.... Read More

If the state of the Nafta renegotiations could be represented on a car’s dashboard, perhaps with a needle pointing to different states of being, over the last month the needle would have swung back and forth wildly pointing to ‘no deal’, to ‘stalemate’, to ‘separate bilateral US deals with Canada and Mexico’ and to ‘deal’.... Read More

Colombian President-elect Iván Duque has appointed Albert Carrasquilla as his finance minister, as well as completing other key appointments to his cabinet ahead of his inauguration on 7 August.... Read More

According to new President Miguel Díaz-Canel big changes are on the way in Cuba.... Read More

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Latin America is still on a recovery path: after a surge in consumption in 2017, investment is finally beginning to pick up.... Read More

Elected on 1 July, future president Andrés Manuel López Obrador (AMLO) has another four months to go (to 1 December) before he is sworn into office.... Read More

With less than three months to go before the elections, and five before handing over power to his successor, it is widely agreed that President Michel Temer is a lame duck.... Read More

Paying taxes and dealing with Latin American governments in all sorts of different areas is time consuming, bureaucratic and often deeply frustrating.... Read More

There was a mix of good and bad news for Chile in July.... Read More

The urbanised area including Guatemala City and its immediate neighbourhoods is the most populated in Central America, with around 2.9m inhabitants.... Read More

It could be called a turning point.... Read More

Latin America’s agriculture, livestock, and fisheries output is set to grow by 17% over the next ten years, according to a joint report by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) and the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO).... Read More

Uber says Mexico investment US$500m: US ride-hailing company Uber Technologies said in July that it had invested more than US$500m in its Mexican operations since launching there in 2013.... Read More