Economy & Business - April 2022

Honduras’s new president, Xiomara Castro, has made dealing with public finances a priority in the first few months of her leftist Partido Libertad y Refundación (Libre) government, moving to enable more borrowing by declaring a fiscal emergency in mid-February.... Read More

For the US, enforcing simultaneous economic sanctions on two different petro-states it accuses of human rights violations appears to be one too many.... Read More

In late March Colombia’s state-run oil company, Ecopetrol, was granted an environmental licence for the Kale project, a pilot fracking project located in Puerto Wilches, in the northeastern department of Santander.... Read More

After higher-than-expected GDP growth of 4.2% in 2021, in late March Ecuador’s central bank (BCE) published its growth expectations for 2022, forecasting a more modest 2.8% increase.... Read More

PERU | Minimum wage hike.... Read More

On 25 March the International Monetary Fund (IMF) Board of Directors concluded nearly two years of difficult negotiations, approving a US$45bn package to reschedule Argentina’s debts and lay out a new economic stabilisation plan.... Read More

Brazil’s right-wing populist President Jair Bolsonaro has again crossed swords with the management of state-controlled oil company Petrobras.... Read More

On 2 March Chile became the world’s first sovereign borrower to launch a sustainability-linked bond (SLB).... Read More

Uruguay’s long planned referendum on President Luis Alberto Lacalle Pou’s omnibus reform bill, known as the Ley de Urgente Consideración (LUC), was narrowly won by the government with a likely positive impact on the economy.... Read More

PARAGUAY | Fuel prices rise after subsidies overturned.... Read More

Rising oil prices due to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine are causing problems throughout Central America, and most governments have taken action to take some of the financial hit.... Read More

In its mid-March concluding statement following its 2022 Article IV Mission to The Bahamas, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) projected output growth of around 5.5% for 2021.... Read More

*** GUYANA EMPHASISES DIVERSIFICATION.... Read More

PANAMA | New toll structure proposal for Canal.... Read More

President Andrés Manuel López Obrador inaugurated the new Felipe Ángeles international airport (AIFA), located 50km north of Mexico City (CDMX), on 21 March.... Read More

Concerns over the autonomy of Mexico’s central bank, Banco de México (Banxico), grew markedly on 24 March, when President Andrés Manuel López Obrador announced that the bank had decided to increase interest rates from 6% to 6.5%.... Read More

Following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine on 24 February, President Andrés Manuel López Obrador declared that Mexico would not feel the effects of the rising energy prices that the war had caused elsewhere.... Read More

During Mexico’s 85th annual banking convention, which kicked off in Acapulco city (Guerrero State) on 24 March, Finance Minister Rogelio Ramírez de la O confirmed that the country’s financial authorities were working on the development of a Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC), which was first disclosed by Banxico’s deputy governor, Jonathan Heath, at the end of 2021.... Read More

MEXICO | Inflation continues to rise.... Read More