LatinNews Daily - 05 March 2021

On 4 March, Brazil’s President Jair Bolsonaro repeated his criticisms of local governments which adopt lockdowns as a way of containing the coronavirus (Covid-19) pandemic, complaining that the power to establish a national policy on the issue has been taken away from him.... Read More

On 4 March Bolivia’s President Luis Arce urged doctors and other medical workers to end a strike against his government’s new emergency health law.... Read More

* Colombia’s finance minister, Alberto Carrasquilla, has presented new figures which show that Colombia’s fiscal deficit came in at 7.8% of GDP in 2020 and is set to rise to 8.6% of GDP in 2021, due to continued emergency spending programmes to address the impact of the coronavirus (Covid-19) pandemic and an increase in public investment to drive an economic recovery.... Read More

* Brazil’s national statistics institute (Ibge) has released its latest figures on the industrial sector, according to which industrial production grew 0.4% in January 2021 compared with December 2020.... Read More

On 4 March Amauri Castillo, the head of Panama’s banking superintendence (SBP), highlighted the need for Panama to retain its investment grade rating.... Read More

* Costa Rica’s national statistics institute (Inec) has released new figures which show that the national unemployment rate for the rolling November 2020-January 2021 quarter was 19.1%.... Read More

On 4 March the head of Mexico’s federal public security ministry (SSPC), Rosa Icela Rodríguez Velázquez, presented a “protection strategy” for candidates ahead of the 6 June midterm federal legislative and state elections.... Read More

* Karla Siqueiros, the director general of Cerveceros de México, the national chamber for the beer and malt industry in Mexico, has outlined how the beer industry suffered from the impacts of the coronavirus (Covid-19) pandemic last year.... Read More

On 4 March Argentina’s Vice President Cristina Fernández accused the national judiciary of being partly responsible for the country’s current economic crisis and insisted on the need for major judicial reform.... Read More

*Argentina’s energy institute (IAE), an NGO that promotes effective use of energy resources, has estimated that the country’s oil production fell 5.3% in 2020 to 27.9m cubic metres.... Read More