LatinNews Daily - 25 January 2021

On 24 January, motorcade protests against President Jair Bolsonaro took place for the second day running in several major cities in Brazil.... Read More

On 22 January, Colombia’s transitional justice system (JEP) ordered the government to adopt a series of measures to protect the lives of former combatants from the demobilised Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia (Farc) guerrilla group.... Read More

* Bolivia’s hydrocarbons minister, Franklin Molina, has announced plans to invest US$279m in the construction of a new biodiesel processing plant in 2021, to help reduce the country’s dependence on diesel imports, estimated to cost US$1.2bn.... Read More

* Foreign direct investment (FDI) to Brazil fell by 50% in 2020, according to preliminary figures reported in an Investments Trend Monitor published by the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (Unctad).... Read More

On 22 January the Costa Rican government led by President Carlos Alvarado announced a deal with an International Monetary Fund (IMF) technical mission over policies that would underpin a US$1.75bn three-year financial assistance arrangement under the Extended Fund Facility (EFF).... Read More

* Nicaragua’s central bank (BCN) has released new figures which show that the country’s trade deficit for the first 11 months of 2020 totalled US$1.29bn, 15.2% less than that registered in the same period in 2019.... Read More

On 24 January Mexico’s President Andrés Manuel López Obrador announced that he had tested positive for coronavirus (Covid-19).... Read More

* Mexico’s President Andrés Manuel López Obrador has hailed the proposed US$1.9trn stimulus plan unveiled by the new US President Joe Biden to address the impact of the coronavirus (Covid-19) pandemic in the US, saying “it will greatly assist in [reactivating] Mexico’s domestic economy”, due to the 38m Mexicans living and working there. José Luis de la Cruz, the director of a local think-tank Instituto para el Desarrollo Industrial y el Crecimiento Económico, said that while the Biden team did not design its economic plan with the express “intention” of helping the Mexican economy, its measures could have a positive “collateral” effect in terms of job market recovery and resultant impact on remittances sent to Mexico.... Read More

On 25 January members of the Paraguayan senate criticised President Mario Abdo Benítez’s nomination of his foreign minister, Federico González, as the new director at the Itaipú binational hydroelectric dam that Paraguay shares with Brazil.... Read More

* Uruguay’s President Luis Lacalle Pou and Economy & Finance Minister Azucena Arbeleche have signed three decrees which increase the base from which the Impuesto Específico Interno (Imesi) tax is calculated for tobacco products, drinks, and petrol fuels.... Read More

Venezuela: On 20 January Venezuela’s de facto president, Nicolás Maduro, called for the new US administration led by President Joe Biden to carry out a “profound and in-depth rectification, to end the demonisation of the Bolivarian Revolution”, which he described as a product of the “extremist and supremacist policies” of former US president Donald Trump (2017-2021).... Read More