Economy & Business - May 2020

Amid ‘China virus’ jibes emanating from the US and from Brazilian congressman Eduardo Bolsonaro, the Chinese government has busily supplied stressed Latin American health systems with unprecedented medical aid.... Read More

In the face of what it is calling a ‘triple emergency’ (sanitary, social, and economic) due to the coronavirus (Covid-19) pandemic, the Ecuadorean government is facing serious financial problems.... Read More

Aurelio Chino, the president of Peruvian indigenous group, Federación Indígena Quechua del Pastaza (Fediquep), travelled to the Netherlands in March to register a complaint with the Dutch representative to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) regarding the activities of oil company, Pluspetrol, which has been operating in remote areas of the Peruvian Amazon since 1996.... Read More

BOLIVIA | IMF returns.... Read More

Argentina is either opting out of all future Southern Common Market (Mercosur) trade negotiations – as announced on 24 April – or, on the contrary, it is continuing to “advance jointly” with them – as it subsequently announced on 7 May.... Read More

Shaken by the coronavirus (Covid-19) health emergency and the emerging economic global recession, the Paraguayan economy will contract by somewhere between 1% and 2.5% this year.... Read More

Uruguay has so far avoided the worst of the coronavirus (Covid-19) pandemic, with infection and fatality rates remaining relatively low.... Read More

As coronavirus (Covid-19) infections and deaths continue on a rising curve, there is confusion over Brazil’s economic policy direction.... Read More

CHILE| Central bank approaches IMF.... Read More

Measures to stop the spread of the coronavirus (Covid-19) have badly impacted travel and tourism in Central America, a sector which is a key contributor to GDP across the sub-region.... Read More

Given its land area, the fact that Guatemala ranks first among Latin American countries on the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) list of the world’s top palm oil exporters might come as a surprise.... Read More

In its latest Quarterly Bulletin, published in late April, the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) looks in detail at what the coronavirus (Covid-19) pandemic could mean for six Caribbean economies: The Bahamas, Barbados, Guyana, Jamaica, Suriname, and Trinidad & Tobago.... Read More

REGION | IDB warns of unemployment.... Read More

Mexico attracted the world’s attention during the 9 April extraordinary meeting of the so-called Opec+ grouping of oil producing countries -which includes the 13 members of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (Opec) in addition to 10 more oil exporting countries that include Mexico.... Read More

On 17 April, international credit ratings agency Moody’s Investors Service announced that it had downgraded Mexico’s sovereign debt rating from ‘A3’ to ‘Baa1’.... Read More

Unlike the government led by President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, Mexico’s central bank (Banxico), has adopted a heterodox approach to face the country’s economic crisis.... Read More

Trade agreement with EU updated: On 28 April Mexico and the European Union (EU) announced the conclusion of the last outstanding element of the negotiation of their new updated bilateral trade agreement.... Read More