LatinNews Regional Monitor: Caribbean & Central America - 23 October 2018

* Costa Rica’s finance ministry has released figures which show the country’s fiscal deficit reached 4.5% of GDP at the end of the third quarter. This compares with 4% at the end of the third quarter in 2017. The latest figures come as the government led by President Carlos Alvarado is seeking to push through a fiscal reform initiative that seeks to address the country’s widening fiscal deficit, which closed at 6.2% of GDP in 2017. Approved in a preliminary debate by the 57-member unicameral national legislature earlier this month, the initiative, which has been rejected by the supreme court (CSJ), would replace the current 13% sales tax with a 13% value-added tax (VAT) and increase the number of products and services to be taxed among other things.

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