After months in the pipeline, Nicaragua’s 92-seat unicameral legislature approved President Daniel Ortega’s tax reform proposal. As was the case with his 2009 fiscal reform, the new bill, which was agreed with the private sector lobby, Cosep, fails to introduce major structural changes, once again exposing the gap between Ortega’s radical left-wing rhetoric and his pro-business policies. The reform also failed to address the issue of tax exemptions and exonerations – long a demand of the International Monetary Fund (IMF). Yet despite this, a new agreement with the IMF appears to be on the cards. The left-wing government’s cooperation with…

Upon taking office a year ago (January 2012), President Otto Pérez Molina announced plans to breathe new life into the mining sector. These plans are moving along with the introduction of a new mining law. Guatemala’s mining sector is dominated by the Marlin gold and silver mine, owned by Canada’s Goldcorp, which remains up and running despite a 2010 ruling by the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) ordering its suspension over environmental concerns [WR-10-25]. In July Pérez Molina lifted the previous administration’s moratorium on the approval of new concessions. This dates back to 2008 when the CC ruled that…

President Danilo Medina made a plea for patience from Dominicans during a televised address to mark the completion of his first 100 days in power. Medina was one of the most eloquent proponents of “a new model of growth and prosperity based on justice and equality” during the XXII Ibero-American summit held in Cadiz, Spain in November, condemning European austerity measures which he said would only increase social exclusion and weaken the economy. Dominicans, however, have yet to be convinced that he is delivering on the economic front and are up in arms against the tax increases the new president…

In December, the United Nation (UN)’s Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (Eclac) presented a relatively upbeat assessment of the prospects for the Caribbean economy, but the International Monetary Fund (IMF) seems to be taking a more cautious view as its worries about the long-term debt question persist. The headline message from Eclac is that most of the English- and Dutch-speaking Caribbean returned to growth in 2012, despite having taken longer than most to rebound from the global financial crisis of 2008-09. Eclac expects an overall annual GDP result of about 1.1% for the region. Although this represents…