LatinNews Daily - 11 December 2018

Development: On 10 December the US Assistant Secretary of State of Western Hemisphere Affairs, Kimberly Breier, described the municipal elections held in Venezuela the previous day as “profoundly flawed” and called for the restoration of democratic order in the country.... Read More

* Ecuador’s state-owned oil company Petroecuador has signed a new contract with its Peruvian counterpart, Petroperú, to supply a total of 3.9m barrels of 'Oriente' crude from January-November 2019.... Read More

Development: On 10 December, Brazil’s health ministry said that it is still looking to fill 106 vacant positions left by the departure of the Cuban doctors who were employed in the country under the ‘Mais Médicos’ programme.... Read More

* The authorities of the Brazilian port of Itaqui and the administration of the Panama Canal have signed an agreement with the aim of boosting the use of the canal by ships destined to or coming from Itaqui, as well as developing partnerships in technical areas.... Read More

Development: On 10 December the Guatemala-based think-tank Instituto Centroamericano de Estudios Fiscales (Icefi) warned that if El Salvador’s 84-member unicameral national legislature fails to approve the state budget for 2019, the country could face a major fiscal crisis.... Read More

* Nicaragua’s central bank (BCN) has released new figures which show inflation for the month of November 2018 was 4.40% year-on-year.... Read More

Development: On 10 December, senators from Mexico’s ruling Movimiento Regeneración Nacional (Morena) party presented an appeal to the supreme court (SCJN), asking it to lift its suspension of the ‘Ley Federal de Remuneraciones’, which bars public officials from earning in excess of the president’s recently reduced salary.... Read More

* The US Chamber of Commerce (USCC) has issued a statement underlining that after carefully assessing the new US-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA) regional trade deal and its “impact on our members,” the USCC has “thrown its support behind [the trade deal], which is critical to maintaining strong economic growth” in the US.... Read More

Development: On 10 December Uruguay’s labour & social security minister, Ernesto Murro, signed a resolution declaring the supply and distribution of all fuels and their derivatives by the state-run energy company Administración Nacional de Combustibles, Alcohol y Portland (Ancap) to be ‘essential’.... Read More

* Paraguay’s finance ministry has confirmed its fiscal deficit forecast for the year at 1.3% of GDP.... Read More