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Development: The opposition journalist Nelson Bocaranda posted a curious article on his RunRunes blog on 22 March, suggesting that reliable government and ruling party sources had told him that the administration led by President Hugo Chávez intends to axe regional and municipal authorities.

Significance: The plan, Bocaranda suggests, is to accelerate passage through the national assembly (AN) of the Organic Law of Communes (2010), with a view to eliminating state governorships and mayoralties ahead of the 7 October presidential election, which is due to be followed on 16 December by regional elections.

Key points:

• There has been some suspicion as to why the ruling Partido Unido Socialista de Venezuela (PSUV) has not held internal primaries for the regional contest, with the party leadership seemingly intent on handpicking candidates, in clear disregard for the PSUV’s much vaunted ‘internal democracy’. Some in the PSUV base have already complained publically about the lack of primaries.

• The Organic Law of Communes envisages the establishment of local self-governing people’s communes across the country, as well as the formation of a Communal Parliament. It was passed in December 2010 along with four other laws within the so-called Laws of People’s Power. The five laws include: The Organic Law of Popular Power, the Organic Law of Popular and Public Planning, the Organic Law of Communes, the Organic Law of Social Auditing and the Organic Law for the Development and Promotion of the Communal Economy. Together, the laws promote the decentralisation of power, collective property, self-government, and the Government Federal Council as the main planning organisation.

• The opposition argues the laws were unconstitutional and expressed fears that the intention was that the Communal Parliament would one day displace the unicameral AN. Even if the PSUV did not muster sufficient support to get the Law of Communes through the assembly, in theory Chávez could use his presidential decree powers - valid until July - to bypass the assembly.

• Some in the opposition fear that the government will look for the slightest excuse to delay or cancel the presidential election (which must, in theory, be held by December 2012 at the latest).

Last month Haiti’s President Michel Martelly paid his first official visit to the Dominican Republic since taking office in May 2011, where he met his Dominican peer, Leonel Fernández. The meeting took place against an unfortunate backdrop however; in recent weeks corruption allegations have come to light regarding Dominican companies involved in Haiti’s reconstruction efforts. If proven to be true, the scandal has implications for both governments.  In particular it could damage the chances of Fernández’s ruling Partido de la Liberación Dominicana (PLD) which is seeking to win its third consecutive presidential election in May.

Martelly travelled to Santo Domingo on 26 March to take part in a meeting of the bi-national mixed commission, an entity set up in 1996 as the only official forum for promoting relations. While bilateral relations have traditionally been testy, the fact that, under Fernández’s leadership, the DR was quick to offer assistance to Haiti following the January 2010 earthquake went some way to improving ties. The 26 March meeting appeared to further confirm this rapprochement with various cooperation agreements signed. These included one establishing a so-called “Bolivarian Fund of Solidarity with Haiti”, to be financed indirectly by Venezuela, through President Hugo Chávez’s subsidised oil scheme, Petrocaribe which is aimed at promoting the use of natural gas in Haiti.

Martelly’s visit already came at a difficult time for the Haitian President who is facing political problems as a result of the resignation of Prime Minister Garry Conille [RC-12-03]. It also took place amid a growing political scandal involving both governments; one of the factors contributing to the “irreconcilable differences” cited by Conille as grounds for his resignation was his decision to investigate all of the reconstruction-related contracts signed by his predecessor, Jean Max Bellerive (2009-2011). At the time, the Dominican press speculated that Haitian authorities were particularly interested in contracts won by Dominican firms. In a visit to the Dominican Republic last month, Bellerive admitted that he had expedited the normal tender process to award contracts to two Dominican construction firms although he denied any wrongdoing; he said that as prime minister he had the power to do this given the nature of the emergency and dismissed the investigation as a smear campaign on the part of his successor.

On 31 March however, just days after Martelly’s visit, Dominican investigative journalist, Nuria Piera, revealed on her weekly TV show that the two Dominican construction firms in question (Hadom and Rofi) are linked to a prominent member of the ruling PLD, senator Félix Bautista. Bautista, who also doubles as PLD secretary, is considered to be close to Fernández and is already under investigation in the DR following accusations by the opposition Partido de la Revolución Dominicana (PRD) that he used his contacts in government to secure lucrative state contracts. Piera said that she had access to bank records which show that Bautista’s companies had given Martelly a total of US$2.5m prior to and after he assumed office. According to Piera as a result of this, Bautista’s companies were awarded contracts to the tune of US$200m.  

Piera’s allegations prompted Haiti’s presidential palace to issue a short statement “categorically reject[ing] the extravagant allegations unjustly directed towards the head of State by a Dominican journalist”. However, Bellerive has revealed that, when the Haitian government approached Fernández for help in identifying possible companies to assist with immediate reconstruction efforts, he introduced Bellerive to Bautista. Bellerive maintains that he did not know that Bautista was the owner or share holder of the recommended companies. This has once again upped the pressure on Martelly and Fernández to clarify how much they knew about the deals and has fuelled suspicion regarding the latter’s apparent eagerness to assist his neighbour following the earthquake.

• Discrimination

On 13 March the government of President Leonel Fernández was forced to deny at the annual United Nations Human Rights Committee meeting that it promotes or tolerates any kind of racism. This was in response to concern expressed by the UN regarding constant complaints of discrimination against Haitian immigrants and their descendants. According to the International Organization for Migration (IOM), some 2,272 of the estimated 50,000-200,000 Haitian refugees in the DR have decided to return to Haiti, often complaining that discrimination against them is still prevalent in Dominican society.

URUGUAY | Cannabis production & sale to be legalised. On 20 June at a press conference attended by the ministers of interior and social development, and the presidential chief of staff, defence minister Eleuterio Fernández Huidobro announced that the government will be introducing legislation providing for the ‘regulated and controlled legalisation’ of cannabis. He said that the prohibition of ‘certain drugs’ was causing Uruguay ‘more problems than the drugs themselves’. Fernández Huidobro said that President José Mujica (away at the time attending the Rio+20 meeting) would lobby for the legalisation of cannabis in all international forums.

He said it would become part of Uruguay’s foreign policy to seek the reversal of ‘the prohibition initiated in 1971 by a mistaken decision of former US president Richard Nixon that provoked the current disasters.’

The use of cannabis is not a criminal offence in Uruguay, but the law does penalise its production and sale. Almost 10% of the population (some 300,000 people) have at some time used cannabis, and between 127,000 and 150,000 do so regularly, sustaining an illegal business with an annual turnover estimated at US$75m a year.

Presidential chief of staff Alberto Breccia explained that the plan was for cultivation to be entrusted to ‘authorised growers’ and for the processing and distribution to remain in the hands of the government. Chemical markers would be used to certify the provenance of legal cannabis.

Colombia’s President Juan Manuel Santos, who has been calling for a debate on drug legalisation, criticised the Uruguayan decision on the grounds that this was not a step that individual countries could taken on their own. The US-based pro-legalisation Drug Policy Alliance welcomed the Uruguayan move but warned that establishing a state monopoly would not be the best regulatory instrument. Inside Uruguay, the Fundación Manantiales which promotes the rehabilitation of drug addicts, said that the conditions were not ripe for legalisation and that the initiative should be made subject to a referendum.

CHILE | New episodes of violence in Araucanía. On 7 June in the Mapuche community of Wente Winkul Mapu, seven local people and four police officers were injured when a unit of Carabineros arrived to serve an arrest warrant on Erick Montoya, wanted in connection with the attempted murder of a policeman and a farmer in October last year. The police officers were injured with clubs and axes; the members of the community received beatings, the impact of rubber bullets and, in at least two cases, of shotgun pellets. Montoya and his brother were taken into custody.

Later in the day a group of men shouting slogans alluding to the raid burst into the yard of a nearby packing plant and torched three trucks. Fire-fighters were sent to the scene and a Carabinero search party was deployed.

BRAZIL | Military withdraw from Complexo do Alemão. The military units sent into the Complexo do Alemão in November 2010, began to withdraw on 28 June, handing over control to the Bope, the special operations battalion of the Rio state military police. During the phase of military control the group of favelas was controlled by 1,700 troops, which spent two-month stints on ‘pacification’ duty.

The establishment of four police pacification units (UPPs) in Alemão began last April, and a further four will be added. There are now 25 UPPs in operation in Rio. Another will be established in the huge Rocinha slum, where the military police were inserted last November.

President Otto Pérez Molina is trumpeting progress in reforming the national police (PNC). This follows the approval earlier in the year of another issue with which his predecessors struggled - tax reform [WR-12-08]. The police reform comes despite doubts regarding Pérez Molina’s commitment to the move given his military background (he served as head of the military intelligence [D-2]) during the 1960-1996 civil war and earlier readiness to involve the military in citizen security – a strategy which, civil society groups have previously warned, undermines efforts to strengthen civilian law enforcement.

In what police reform commissioner Adela Camacho described as the “first step to professionalise the [police] institution”, on 1 August Pérez Molina inaugurated a new officer training school. Fulfilling a pledge he made upon assuming the presidency in January 2012, the new academy was constructed with an investment of US$1.9m and will have an initial intake of 80 police officials. Its inauguration also coincided with the graduation of 1,503 new police agents who had completed a six-month course, in line with another promise made by Pérez Molina upon taking office - that he would add an additional 10,000 police officials to the force over four years. Pérez Molina’s declared commitment to strengthening the PNC was also recently reflected in his proposed constitutional reforms [WR-12-29]. While the changes would increase the role of the military from “defence of sovereignty and territorial integrity” to allow it to “support civil security forces in internal security”, they also would establish the police as the security force responsible for preventing and investigating crime and maintaining public order.

The need to both increase the size of the police and strengthen it as an institution has long been considered essential to addressing the country’s security crisis and has been on the government agenda since the end of the civil war. A July 2012 report by the Brussels-based International Crisis Group (ICG) concedes that increasing the police and reducing the armed forces was one of the few areas in which Guatemalan governments met obligations stipulated by the 1996 peace accords which ended the internal conflict: it notes that the police has grown from 12,000 to 25,000 officials, while the military was cut from 47,000 to about 17,000. Yet the report points out that Guatemala continues to lag behind its neighbours in terms of the ratio of police to population: the country has 174 police per 100,000 inhabitants, while Honduras has 180 and El Salvador, 334.

The problems relate not just to the size but also structure and professionalism of the police which is widely considered one of the most corrupt and inefficient institutions in the country: while in Latin America as a whole, only one third of the public feel some or much confidence in the police, according to the latest Latinobarómetro survey released in May 2012, this drops to 15% for Guatemala. Highlighting the historical roots of this institutional weakness, the ICG notes that in the rush to expand the police following the end of the civil war, “many former members of the old National Police were incorporated into the new PNC with little additional training or background checks” while “human rights investigators are only now scrutinising the role of police death squads during the armed conflict”. The poor leadership – which the new academy aims to address – has also been attributed to problems at the top of the interior ministry, which oversees the PNC. This was illustrated under the previous government of President Alvaro Colom (2008-2012), which had five interior ministers and five PNC chiefs.

One reason for optimism regarding Pérez Molina’s chances of success compared with those of his predecessors stems from the funds he theoretically has at his disposal. It is worth pointing out that Colom also acknowledged the need for police reform – the appointment of a prominent human rights activist, Helen Mack, in January 2010 to the newly created post of presidential commissioner of police reform had raised hopes for police transformation. Yet these efforts stalled due to a lack of budget. A January 2012 report by a Dutch think tank, the Clingendael Institute, for example, said that police reform under Mack “has been seriously undermined by the reallocation of resources from the PNC and the Interior Ministry towards other parts of government. In 2010, for instance, the police budget was cut by some 207 million quetzals [US$26m].”

Pérez Molina’s success in overcoming the obstacles faced by his predecessor in order to get the tax reform approved  – described by the ICG as a “prerequisite for any significant upgrade of security forces” - leaves him in a stronger position; the tax reform is expected to raise an additional US$585m over the next four years. The ICG does, however, estimate that Pérez Molina’s plans to add an additional 10,000 police officers over the course of his mandate would imply an additional cost of US$337m in salaries plus US$45m to train the recruits – representing some 65% of the added revenues projected under the reform.

Military bases

Pérez Molina’s declared commitment to police reform nonetheless comes amid other signs of his continued use of the military for citizen security – a strategy which has attracted considerable criticism of late with his (subsequently suspended) declaration of a state of siege in the indigenous municipality of Santa Cruz Barillas, Huehuetenango [WR-12-19].

   On 30 June Pérez Molina inaugurated two new military bases: one in San Juan Sacatepéquez, in the region of Guatemala; and the other in the Petén region, bordering Mexico. Both are controversial for different reasons. Like Santa Cruz Barillas, San Juan Sacatepéquez has seen social tensions caused by opposition to the construction of a cement processing plant by a local company, Cementos Progreso, which is due to begin operating in 2014. The move left Pérez Molina open to accusations of leaning on the military to defend the interests of companies involved in resource extraction and industrialisation projects unpopular with local communities. Meanwhile the new Brigada Especial de Operaciones de Selva (special jungle operations brigade) sent to the Péten controversially includes a contingent from the ‘Kaibiles’ elite special forces. The Kaibiles, created in 1975, earned a notorious reputation during the civil war, and were suspected of some of the worst violence perpetrated during the period. Former Kaibiles members have also been linked to the Mexican drug gang Los Zetas, which is established in Guatemala. Pérez Molina has suggested plans to open a further nine military bases this year.

• Problems at the top

President Alvaro Colom had five interior ministers during his four-year term (2008-2012), three of whom left office in disgrace. Raúl Velásquez faces money laundering and extortion charges; Salvador Gándara is awaiting trial on conspiracy and fraud charges; and Francisco Jiménez resigned in a scandal over irregularities in a contract for ID documents. Of the five police (PNC) directors during Colom’s term, two subsequently went to jail - Porfirio Pérez Paniagua and Baltazar Gómez, though the former was acquitted in February 2011 - and two were dismissed from their posts - Isabel Mendoza Agustín and Marlene Blanco, the latter recently arrested on charges related to extra-judicial killings of suspects during her tenure.

•  A first for Guatemala

Guatemala this week is celebrating its first-ever Olympic medal since the country first took part in the Olympic Games in 1952. On 4 August Erick Barrondo walked off with a silver medal in the 20km race walk at the London 2012 Olympic Games, just behind China’s Chen Ding. President Otto Pérez Molina was quick to congratulate the 21-year-old, and congress voted unanimously to make him a Knight of the Order of the Sovereign Congress. Barrondo will also receive US$64,000.

MÉXICO | Tratando de evitar una guerra del tomate. El ministerio de economía (SE) de México emitió el 2 de octubre una declaración urgiendo a EU que se abstenga de adoptar “medidas proteccionistas” cancelando un acuerdo bilateral sobre exportaciones de tomates. La declaración de SE se produce después de que el departamento de comercio de EU (USDOC) anunció el 27 de septiembre que después de conducir una extensa investigación sobre alegatos de dumping en el mercado del tomate estaba considerando cancelar el acuerdo. El acuerdo establece un precio mínimo para la venta de los tomates mexicanos en EU, pero los productores de EU, particularmente aquellos de la Florida, el estado mayor productor de tomates en EU, no obstante se han quejado de que el mercado ha sido inundado de tomates mexicanos, poniendo a muchos de ellos fuera del negocio. Se estima que cerca de la mitad de los tomates vendidos en EU provienen de México. De acuerdo con el Florida Tomato Exchange, desde que el acuerdo entró en vigencia, sus ventas han descendido de US$500m al año, a US$250m. En contraste, los datos oficiales de SE muestran que el valor de la exportaciones tomates mexicanos a EU desde 1996 se ha triplicado a US$1,8mm. Esta situación ha llevado a los productores de EU a pedir a la USDOC que lance una investigación. En su declaración, SE advirtió que México está preparado para “adoptar una fuerte y decidida defensa de nuestros intereses comerciales y de nuestra industria del tomate”. La declaración agrega que la cancelación del acuerdo no sólo dañaría las relaciones comerciales bilaterales, sino también a los “productores, trabajadores, exportadores, importadores, comerciantes y consumidores en ambos lados de la frontera”. De esa manera SE estaba recordando a EU que México podría decidirse a adoptar medidas en retaliación, como lo hizo en el 2009 en medio de la disputa en el transporte por carretera entre los dos países, que vio a México imponer tarifas punitivas sobre las papas, cerdos, y papel higiénico de EU, que dañó severamente a los exportadores de EU. Las tarifas recién fueron bajadas el año pasado, después de que ambos países lograron finalmente resolver la disputa en julio del 2011. La disputa por el transporte solamente afectó a los camioneros mexicanos, que presumiblemente representan solamente una proporción de la población trabajadora de 350.000 personas que se estima que están empleadas por la industria del tomate de México.

MÉXICO | Consideran volver obligatorio para los bancos cotizar en la bolsa de valores. El 1 de octubre, el ministro de finanzas de México, José Antonio Meade Kuribeña, reveló que el gobierno estaba discutiendo con los bancos del país la posibilidad de que sean requeridos por ley estar en el listado del mercado de valores. Meade explicó, “Nos atrae la idea que los bancos mexicanos coticen en la bolsa de valores, pues sentimos que esto proveerá una supervisión de mejor calidad en el sector bancario”, ya que permitiría a la comisión nacional bancaria y de valores (CNBV) monitorear completamente las actividades financieras de los bancos. Meade destacó que en años recientes México ha pasado de tener una ley de mercado de valores muy restrictiva, que ofrecía poca protección a los inversionistas, a tener uno de los marcos legales más modernos del mercado de valores en la región, y como resultado ha atraído crecientemente  a más firmas que se enlisten en la bolsa mexicana de valores (BMV). La revelación de Meade se produjo días después de que la subsidiaria del banco español, Santander, lanzará una oferta pública inicial (OPI) en el New York Stock Exchange y en la BMV el 26 de septiembre. La OPI logró reunir más de US$4mm, el mayor listado de una compañía mexicana y una de las OPIs más grandes del mundo en lo que va del año. De hecho, el desempeño de la OPI excedió todas las expectativas del mercado como señaló el CEO de Santander México, Marcos Martínez, indicando que la compañía esperaba atraer US$3,5mm.

MÉXICO | La CFC pide que todos los sectores se abran a la inversión extranjera. La Comisión Federal de la Competencia (CFC) de México, la agencia antimonopolios del país, dijo el 2 de octubre que estaba a favor de abrir todos los sectores de la economía actualmente restringidos para la inversión extranjera, incluyendo los sectores de las telecomunicaciones y transporte. El presidente de la CFC, Eduardo Pérez Motta, dijo que, en su opinión, “debe haber una apertura completa [a inversionistas extranjeros] en todos los sectores” de la economía mexicana pues el nivel de competencia en algunos sectores aún tiene “enormes deficiencias”. En este contexto, Pérez Motta elogió el anuncio del gobierno federal de que buscará cambiar la existente ley de inversión extranjera del país, que prohíbe la propiedad extranjera en ciertos sectores como la transmisión de TV y los restringe en otros, como los servicios de telefonía; y dijo que “sin duda, el sector de las telecomunicaciones debe ser incluido”. Pérez Motta explicó por ejemplo que “no tiene sentido que acá no haya restricciones para los servicios de telefonía móvil pero que aún haya en los servicios de telefonía fija”. Él señaló que estas reformas no solamente elevarían la competencia en todos los mercados, para beneficio de los consumidores, sino que también promoverá la creación de empleos.

• Facebook operará en la BMV

El 1 de octubre la firma de EU de medios sociales, Facebook, anunció que estaba preparando lanzar una oferta pública inicial (OPI) de sus acciones en la bolsa mexicana de valores (BMV). Según una declaración de Facebook, la compañía tomó la decisión después de confirmar que habría una fuerte demanda por sus acciones en la BMV. Facebook lanzó una OPI en EU en mayo de este año, pero sus acciones tuvieron un desempeño menos que espectacular desde entonces y la compañía está buscando reunir más fondos en los mercados internacionales a través de una propuesta de emisión global.

No sooner had President Evo Morales finished venting over the rough treatment Bolivia was given by the US government in its assessment of antidrug performance than something of the same sort came from an entirely unexpected quarter: the consul-general of Chile in La Paz.

In an interview granted to the newspaper El Deber, published on 10 November, consul-general Jorge Canelas said, “One of the points of our relationship that most concerns us it the exponential growth of the amount of drugs seized that comes from Bolivia.”

He said that in the past the Chilean police intercepted shipments of 50, 80 and up to 100 kilos of drug, whereas nowadays it has become commonplace to seize shipments of half-a-tonne or even more then 1.7t. At the end of October the police in Santiago intercepted a load of 1.7t of cannabis, cocaine hydrochloride and cocaine base paste — the biggest ever drugs seizure on record.

Canelas added that as a result of the increasing volumes intercepted, the Chilean authorities have had to tighten the controls over Bolivian merchandise passing through Chilean ports, which is affecting the flow of trade. An added concern is that Chilean ports may end up being considered “danger spots” or conduits for the drugs trade.

Bolivian foreign affairs minister David Choquehuanca said that organisations such as the United Nations (UN) had maintained that Bolivia was a transit country, not a drug-producing one. He also underlined that the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) had verified a net 12% reduction in the area devoted to coca cultivation in Bolivia. The Morales government keeps insisting that the bulk of the cocaine that passes through Bolivia comes from Peru.

Cooperation with the neighbours

In what appears to be a clear bid to dispel doubts about Bolivia’s commitment to the anti drugs effort, on 14 November in Lima, Bolivia’s interior minister, Carlos Romero Bonifaz, signed an agreement with his Peruvian peer, Wilfredo Pedraza, and Brazilian justice minister, José Eduardo Cardozo, to establish a technical working party to prepare within 60 days, a set of practical mechanisms for joint anti-drugs action.

The group’s brief includes strengthening joint action of border control (ground air, and riverine), and increased cooperation in police matters and intelligence exchange, as well as a sharing of experiences in the fight against drugs. Pedraza said that the working group must be eminently technical and not political, “because otherwise there will be no progress”.

Attending the meeting was a constellation of high-ranking officials: Peru’s justice minister, Eda Rivas, and deputy foreign relations minister Fernando Rojas, the representative of the Unodc, Flavio Mirella, plus high-echelon officials involved in counternarcotics functions in the three countries.

The three signatories insisted that they would be taking deadlines seriously, and expected to soon meet again to start taking decisions on the basis of the efforts of the technical working party. It is worth noting that all three countries are already involved in similar exercises at a bilateral level.

*** Attack threat to Europe.  Officials of the Somali Islamist movement al-Shabab have threatened to launch attacks against Europe, according to a report on Radio Mustaqbal in Mogadishu, broadcast on 2 December.  The outlet quoted “high-ranking” al-Shahabab official Fuad Muhammad Qalaf (alias Shongle) as calling on Muslims around the world to attack the Netherlands because the country “recently insulted our prophet Muhammad”.

*** China opposes Nato missile deployment in Turkey.  On 5 December, China’s foreign ministry issued a statement opposing the deployment of Nato Patriot missiles in Turkey along the border with Syria as being “inconducive to peace, security, and stability” in the region.

A Chinese foreign ministry spokesman said: “Highlighting military factors and strengthening military existence are inconducive to the resolution of contradictions and disputes, and inconducive to the peace, security, and stability in the whole region.”

*** Japanese police concerned about rightist activity over China dispute.  On 4 December, Japan’s National Police Agency warned in its annual report that right-wing activists are likely to continue their protests over territorial disputes against China and South Korea in the coming year.  The report said they “could carry out serious crimes, including terror attacks against senior politicians and foreign embassies”.

Three other threats were noted: left-wing protests against nuclear power; attempts to recruit followers for an offshoot of the Aum Shinrikyo cult; and cyber-attacks against government agencies.  The report warned: “Online theft of classified information could have serious consequences on the law and order in Japan as well as the country’s diplomacy and security.”

*** More fierce criticism of Israel from Turkey.  Turkey’s Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan has stepped up his criticism of Israel and accused it of “feeding on blood”.  He included an implied threat by saying that the region “was not what it used to be” and was growing tired of “lawless acts”.

During a political meeting on 4 December, he said: “Israel needs to act responsibly for the sake and safety of the region.  The region is not what it used to be.  Neighbouring countries , as well as the world, are now tired of Israel’s lawless acts.  Israel needs to stop feeding on blood and tears.”

La difusión de cifras de inflación bastante sombrías provocó una reunión de crisis en el palacio Planalto esta semana. El consenso entre los economistas privados es que el comité de política monetaria del banco central (Copom)  no tiene otra opción más que la de elevar la tasa de interés de referencia, Selic, de su histórico bajo nivel de 7,25%, donde se ha mantenido desde octubre del 2012. La preocupación en círculos del gobierno es que una subida en la tasa de interés acabaría con la frágil recuperación industrial y desalentaría el sentimiento de los consumidores antes de las elecciones del 2014. Este es un clásico dilema político para la Presidenta Dilma Rousseff.

El índice de precios al consumidor ampliado (IPCA) llegó al 6,6% año en año, en marzo, sobrepasando el límite superior de la banda meta de inflación establecida por el banco central (4,5% +/- 2,0%).

Mientras la tendencia inflacionaria general continuaba hacia la baja mes en mes en marzo, a medida que los factores estacionales de principios de año, como la educación y los últimos esfuerzos para reducir los costos generales de la canasta básica de la inflación empiezan a tener efecto, surge que una parte fundamental del problema es que los salarios en Brasil están creciendo más rápidamente que la productividad en un mercado pleno mercado de trabajo, obstaculizando el crecimiento y creando presiones inflacionarias más arraigadas. El hecho de que estas presiones pueden verse en el sector de servicios significa que, en el papel, ya es tiempo de enfriar el exceso de la demanda del consumidor, subiendo las tasas de interés, incluso aunque esto pueda ser políticamente impopular. La próxima reunión del Copom será el 16-17 de abril y este tiende a actuar preventivamente en vez de ponerse en espera, aunque algunos analistas piensan que podría tratar de abstenerse hasta mayo.

Rousseff, ella misma una economista, convocó el 10 de abril al palacio presidencial a un grupo de economistas apodados los “pesos-pesados” por el diario conservador, O Estado, a una reunión de crisis para discutir el lento crecimiento de Brasil y la tenaz inflación. Entre estos figuran el ministro de finanzas, Guido Mantega, y el secretario del tesoro, Arno Augustin; Delfim Netto, el ex ministro de finanzas quien supervisó el ‘milagro económico’ de Brasil de  finales de los ‘60 y principios de los ’70 y ha estado involucrado desde hace tiempo en los esfuerzos de política oficial para resolver el histórico problema de la inflación en Brasil; Luiz Gonzaga Beluzzo, el ex secretario de política económica bajo la administración liderada por José Sarney (1985-1990); y Yoshiaki Nakano, un profesor de la escuela de economía de la respetada Fundação Getulio Vargas (FGV) y ex asesor del Banco Mundial.

Reaccionando a las últimas cifras, Mantega dijo el 10 de abril que el gobierno estaba “atento” y que no escatimaría esfuerzos para combatir la inflación. El estrecho índice nacional de precios al consumidor (INPC), que analiza los precios minoristas pagados por los sectores de menores ingresos (aquellos que ganan entre una o cinco veces el salario mínimo), creció con más rapidez que el índice general en marzo, alcanzando el 0,6% mes en mes, y el 7,22% año en año. Mientras tanto, el índice general de precios de ‘disponibilidad interna’ (IGP-DI) de la FGV, un índice compuesto de precios al consumidor, al por mayor y de la construcción civil, fue del 0,31% mes en mes y un enorme 7,97% año en año en marzo.

Rousseff y su equipo de política económica liderado por Mantega y su ministra de planeamiento, Miriam Belchior, han tratado de sacar todos los frenos en un esfuerzo por estimular el crecimiento. Mantega dijo que el total de las exenciones tributarias sería igual a poco más del 1,5% del PIB este año, sumando en términos nominales R$70mm (US$34,4mm) y elevándose a R$88mm (US$44,4mm) en el 2014.

El gobierno ha avanzado desde comienzos de año para concentrarse mucho más en el agobiante ‘Custo Brasil’. Más notablemente, ha redoblado sus esfuerzos para superar el cuello de botella de la infraestructura del país, y está tratando de cortar los costos operativos para las empresas, reduciendo los costos de la electricidad y jugueteando en los bordes de las reformas fiscales, por ejemplo. El equipo de micro-administración, liderado por Rousseff también ha dado pasos para limar ciertas asperezas con los inversionistas internacionales, en un esfuerzo por atraer más inversión privada en sectores económicos clave. El gobierno recientemente ha dado marcha atrás a sus restricciones financieras y a los mercados de capital, mientras que también ha dejado en claro que sus intervenciones en apoyo al sector de manufacturas local –como restricciones a la importación sin aranceles y reglas estrictas sobre contenido local– tienen fechas de expiración fijas. Roberto Messemberg, el coordinador del grupo de análisis en el instituto federal para la economía aplicada (Ipea), advirtió a principios de julio del 2012, que el modelo de crecimiento basado en el consumo está “exhausto”. Él pidió al gobierno que se convierta en “el protagonista de la inversión” en áreas clave como infraestructura y energía, a fin de inyectar nueva vida al estancado sector productivo interno. Las bajas tasas de interés son esenciales, pero no suficientes, agregó.

Sergio Werlang, también de la FGV y considerado el “padre” del régimen de metas de inflación de Brasil, aboga por un incremento del 1,5% adicionales en la tasa Selic, a partir de abril, para regular la inflación. Lo importante es que él alega que las altas tasas de interés en esta ocasión no dañarán el mercado laboral –o el crecimiento real del PIB– antes del intento de Rousseff para la reelección en octubre del 2014. Él sugiere que el Copom debería trabajar para obtener una meta de inflación del 5,5% - 6,0% este año, con una meta de crecimiento real anual del PIB del 3,0%. Esto está en línea con el pronóstico consensuado de los economistas privados compilado por el banco central y publicado semanalmente en su Focus Report. En el último informe (5 de abril), el consenso fue de un crecimiento del PIB del 3,0% y una inflación del 5,7% en el 2013, con un crecimiento del 3,5% y la misma inflación en el 2014. El consenso sobre la tasa de fin de año del Selic fue del 8,5% para este año y el siguiente.

Como Messemberg, Werlag también señala que las bajas tasas de interés por sí solas nunca serán suficientes para promover un fuerte crecimiento sostenido en Brasil, y que el país aún necesita abordar profundas reformas estructurales (principalmente en el sistema fiscal, pero también en el mercado laboral) para liberar su potencial de crecimiento entero y terminar con su síndrome de ‘corto vuelo’. Como sus predecesores, la administración Rousseff no ha logrado abordar esta cuestión con su terminalmente recalcitrante congreso.

Alves se da por vencido en el caso Feliciano

Henrique Eduardo Alves, el asediado presidente de la cámara baja del congreso federal, dijo el 9 de abril que no se podía hacer nada más para presionar al controvertido nuevo presidente del comité de derechos humanos y minorías, el diputado evangélico Marco Feliciano, para que se haga a un lado. Alves dijo que ya había alcanzado los límites de su poder y que no podía actuar como “un dictador” sobre la cámara. Sin embargo, Alves si rechazó la movida de Feliciano de impedir que el público asista a las reuniones del comité, que él había pedido la semana pasada después de que la primera reunión del comité bajo su nuevo presidente fuera perturbada por miembros del público que protestaban contra la elección de Feliciano. El bloque parlamentario evangélico y sus aliados han desafiado a una gran campaña pública por la remoción de Feliciano en base a sus comentarios racistas, sexistas y homofóbicos. Después de la segunda reunión del comité esta semana, Feliciano dijo que todo iba “viento en popa” (‘de vento em popa’).

Operación contra la corrupción produce el arresto de 92 sospechosos

Las autoridades brasileras lanzaron el 9 de abril una operación coordinada para desmantelar esquemas de corrupción pública abarcando a 12 estados, de acuerdo con una declaración oficial del Grupo Nacional de Combate às Organizações Criminosas (Gncoc). Se informó que  92 sospechosos, incluidos empleados públicos, oficiales de policía, y gente de negocios, fueron arrestados por sospechas de participación en una red que ha desviado al menos US$577m de fondos de las concesiones de obras públicas, vinculadas con 131 cuerpos en 12 estados. La operación está armada con 311 órdenes de arresto, 86 órdenes de prisión, 65 órdenes de congelamiento de activos y 20 órdenes para la remoción de empleados públicos de sus cargos. El presidente del Gncoc, Héverton Alves de Aguiar, el fiscal general en el estado de Rondônia, dijo que la operación ha mostrado “de una manera muy clara que es posible para las fuerzas del Estado trabajar de manera organizada contra esta enfermedad que desparrama basura en nuestra sociedad”.

• Las ventas minoristas aún decaen

Los volúmenes de ventas minoristas inesperadamente cayeron en febrero, contrayéndose un 0,4% mes en mes, y un 0,2% año en año, de acuerdo con el instituto nacional de estadísticas (Ibge).

• El Real vuelve a estar por debajo de R$2

El Real se estaba comercializando en R$1,97/US$1 el 10 de abril.

*** China’s hawks in the ascendancy in Singapore.  In a number of recent issues we have optimistically observed possible signs that China might wish to de-escalated its confrontation with Japan over the territorial disputes in the East China Sea.  No doubt those reports did reflect the views of elements within the Chinese policymaking elite, but at last week’s Shangri-La security conference in Singapore the hawkish (military) tendency was in full control.  Of the 100 or so fringe meetings between officials from various countries over the course of the conference, none was held between Chinese and Japanese officials.  China’s deputy chief of staff Lt General Wang Guanzhong said no such meeting could take place until Japan corrected “its erroneous policy towards China”.  Japan should, he said, “correct its mistakes as soon as possible to improve China-Japan ties”.

By contrast, and once again indicating that not all influential voices in China agree with the hardline approach to Japan, the China-Japan Asia CEO Forum was held this week in Tokyo for the first time in three years.  Chinese businessman Charles Yin, the founder of the forum, said: “Relations between China and Japan are in a state to be very concerned so I thought economic leaders need to stand up and hold dialogues to deepen mutual understanding and communicate with each other so as to contribute to the prosperity and peace of the Asian economy and society.”

*** Parliamentary challenge to Egypt’s President al-Sisi.  Although ex-Field Marshal Abd-al-Fattah al-Sisi has been overwhelmingly elected president of Egypt, he could face an unexpected challenge from parliament in due course.  The latest Egyptian constitution gives strong powers to parliament, and al-Sisi lacks a political party.  This could even provide an opportunity for the ousted and banned Muslim Brotherhood to claw back some influence.

The House of Representatives is the only chamber of parliament.  Amongst other things, it can pass laws without the authority of the president with a two-thirds majority.  It has important influence on budgetary matters, and the prime minister is appointed with majority approval.  The president can only dissolve parliament following a referendum.

Treaties have to be approved by the House, and the president cannot declare war or send the armed forces on a combat mission without a two-thirds yes vote in parliament.  In certain circumstances, the House of Representatives can demand an early presidential election.

New parliamentary elections are due to be held later this year.

The Peruvian economy is waiting for a lift. But its squabbling politicians threaten to bog it down. As ever, economists were split on the highly-anticipated economic growth figures for March released by the national statistics institute (Inei). According to Inei, growth was 0.71% year-on-year in March (compared to 3.71% in March 2016), to give an overall first-quarter result of 2.08%.

For those wanting to see the glass as half full, the results – which were better than the expected contraction – were evidence of Peru’s resilience, and a pointer towards recovery over the rest of the year, as the massive task of reconstruction and other planned public infrastructure work gets underway, stimulating domestic economic activity.

By contrast, those of a ‘glass half empty’ persuasion noted that growth in March rested almost exclusively on the fisheries sector (+37.3%), and taking into account the third consecutive negative seasonally adjusted figure, some warned that Peru could be headed for a technical recession. The government’s official real GDP growth target of 3% for 2017, others noted, is starting to look materially impossible.

The upshot is that there is a risk of a ‘lost year’ for the economy in 2017, unless the government led by President Pedro Pablo Kuczynski is able – quite literally – to rebuild Peru, and quickly.

For 2018, the consensus sentiment is more upbeat. By then, and assuming stable executive-congress relations (and no more contamination from corruption scandals, which is a big assumption), reconstruction and other infrastructure projects should finally be underway, delivering the positive shock that the domestic economy urgently needs, and creating a virtuous cycle of growth. Lingering concerns on the part of economists might relate to the ability of regional authorities (largely municipalities) to execute the reconstruction works speedily. The onus, thus, will be on the central government to oversee and track progress, and to provide assistance where necessary.

However, with Lima’s politics quickly reverting to grim normality after a temporary show of unity in response to the flooding crisis, there is mounting concern that the Kuczynski administration’s ambitious scheme for ‘Reconstruction with Change’ (Reconstrucción con Cambio) will get trapped in the mud, sinking the economic recovery – which is hinging almost entirely on this kick-start public investment.

Time is of the essence, and not only for the thousands of victims of the floods. Right now, the Kuczynski government has some political momentum over the main opposition Fuerza Popular (FP, Fujimoristas), which controls congress. During the recent crisis, FP played nice. All the signs, however, point to an end to nice.

In the past week, following fresh tensions over the question of a humanitarian release from jail for the elderly former president Alberto Fujimori (1990-2000), FP used its majority in congress to summon the interior minister, Carlos Basombrío, for questioning. Congress has also set a new date – 18 May – for the appearance of the transport minister, Martín Vizcarra, to testify about the government’s controversial addendum to the contract for the new Chinchero airport in Cusco. Vizcarra was meant to appear in March, but this was postponed because of the flood emergency.

If congress were to censure the ministers (thereby making their positions untenable, as happened to Kuczynski’s first education minister in December), the president has threatened to exercise his right to call a vote of confidence in the cabinet. (Peru’s constitution allows the president to dissolve congress and call new elections if two consecutive cabinets receive a no confidence vote. This acts as an emergency ‘rein’ on congressional excess as, typically, deputies do not want to risk losing their seats in fresh elections).

The risk is that a fraught game of brinkmanship erupts between Kuczynski and the Fujimoristas. This would not only cripple the political scene but also the fragile domestic economic sentiment. The last government was also victim to these tactics by an FP controlled congress, prompting then-president Ollanta Humala (2011-2016) to accuse the party of “an attitude of generating instability in the country”.

For Kuczynski, if he does not start to deliver on his economic promises soon, his (wobbly) popularity will start to decline again, and with that any incentive for the Fujimoristas to support him. In a worst-case scenario, some fear, FP actually wants to topple Kuczynski and force early elections. That kind of political upheaval and uncertainty could deal a serious blow to the economy.

A less dramatic scenario sees FP, with one keen eye on securing power for its leader Keiko Fujimori in the 2021 elections, co-operating with Kuczynski on some mutually agreeable areas (like business-friendly economic reforms and security measures), but largely dictating the legislative agenda, shaping it to match its own ambitions and forcing the weak Kuczynski executive to march to its tune.

• Vizcarra – back under the bulb

President Kuczynski said he was sure that Transport Minister Martín Vizcarra would fly through his congressional testimony on 18 May, noting that the minister had already responded to 82 questions in writing in advance of his initially scheduled appearance in March. Opposition Fujimoristas argue that the transport ministry’s decision to put up the initial funding to get the Chinchero airport underway, amid financial difficulties in the private Kuntur Wasi consortium awarded the concession, is prejudicial to the state. But that is not Vizcarra’s only problem. On 4 March, prosecutors presented corruption accusations against him and called for a full investigation into whether he processed irregular payments from Brazil’s scandal-hit construction firm Odebrecht to a holding company purportedly linked to Kuczynski. Vizcarra’s relationship with Kuntur Wasi is also under scrutiny.

With just under a year to run before the next presidential elections, the government of President Enrique Peña Nieto is widely regarded as having a poor record on human rights and the rule of law. In terms of its international image, the last thing it needs right now is a high profile case going before the International Criminal Court (ICC) based in The Hague. But that is what may be in store, as human rights groups focus on alleged crimes against humanity in the state of Coahuila.

A group of 17 human rights groups have compiled evidence to support their claim that what happened in the northern state of Coahuila between 2009 and 2016 amounted to crimes against humanity. They contend that because these events will not be investigated in Mexico, there is a case for the ICC to have jurisdiction. Three specific incidents are cited. In 2011 they claim that members of the Los Zetas drug-trafficking organisation (DTO), in collusion with state authorities, went on a revenge rampage, killing anywhere between 42 and 300 people in the municipality of Allende. They also cite a second case of collusion where Los Zetas were given a free hand to run Piedras Negras prison, killing an estimated 150 victims there. The third case concerns the activities of elite state security forces in 2011-2016, allegedly responsible for hundreds of disappearances, torture, and illegal detention.

Using these cases, the International Federation of Human Rights (FIDH) argues that “the lack of investigations under way in Mexico and the nature of the reported crimes make opening an investigation at the ICC unavoidable, despite the reticence of the Mexican authorities”. The ICC was not set up to investigate organised crime, so there is likely to be some legal argument over whether it should have jurisdiction or not. Earlier attempts to refer Mexican cases to the ICC have not prospered. For it to intervene in the Coahuila case, the FIDH will have to prove that crimes against humanity have taken place; that they are part of a widespread attack on the civilian population carried out by state actors; and that they are not already being properly investigated in the country. Whether the ICC takes up the case or not, it will still remain embarrassing for the ruling Partido Revolucionario Institucional (PRI): successive governors of the state have all been PRI members.

Honduran journalist shot dead:

Concern over attacks on journalists was again heightened after the discovery of the body of Honduran photojournalist Edwin Rivera Paz in Acayucan, Veracruz state, on 16 July. Relatives identified the victim’s bullet-ridden corpse. Rivera Paz had worked as a cameraman on a Honduran TV programme called ‘Los Verduleros’ in the notoriously violent Honduran city of San Pedro Sula. He had left the country after Igor Padilla, the programme’s director and producer, had been shot dead by four men wearing police uniforms, in mid-January. Padilla had covered local crime stories. The Veracruz state prosecutor’s office confirmed the death and said it was investigating the background. Rivera Paz had been applying for refugee status in Mexico. The Coatzacoalcos to Acayucan route is used by many travellers from Central America seeking refuge in Mexico or further afield. According to Mexico’s main human rights commission (Comisión Nacional de Derechos Humanos – CNDH) in the first half of this year criminal groups have become more active in extorting and kidnapping vulnerable refugees using this route.

*** AIRLIFT CAPACITY HIT BY HURRICANES. OAG, the air travel data provider, has produced figures highlighting the effect of the hurricanes Irma and Maria on tourist airlift. According to the figures, the overall number of flights was down by an average of 6.7% in October, with seat capacity down by 4.1%, but these averages hide some much larger declines for some destinations.

With regard to frequency of flights, the worst hit destination was St Kitts and Nevis (down 34.3%), Puerto Rico (-25.1%), and Montserrat (-21.5%). The main other affected destinations were: Dominica (-13.7%), St Maarten (-12%), British Virgin Islands (-11.2%), Anguilla (-6.3%), and the US Virgin Islands (-5.6%). Seat capacity was down by nearly 50% for St Maarten and by one-third for St Kitts & Nevis and Montserrat.

With regard to the main regional airlines, LIAT experienced a 21.3% fall with Caribbean Airlines down by 9.5%. Among the main overseas carriers, American Airlines suffered a 10.6% fall in flights, with capacity down by 8.5%. JetBlue, on the other hand, managed to increase frequency during October by 2.8%, with capacity rising by 5.6%. And, despite the disruption caused by the hurricanes, overall capacity to the region for the first nine months of 2017 was up by 5% compared with the same period in 2016.

*** IMF PRESCRIBES STRONG MEDICINE FOR THE BAHAMAS. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has declared that between 30% and 40% of public-sector employees in The Bahamas are “non-essential temporary workers” and their numbers should be reduced. It has recommended reducing the government’s wage bill to the 2016 fiscal year level, which would provide savings amounting to 0.8% of GDP relative to FY2018.

In its latest Article IV consultation, the IMF reported that the country’s fiscal deficit grew to 5.7% of GDP in FY2017, from 3.5% a year earlier. The central government debt-to-GDP ratio was 73% of GDP. The combined debt of state-owned enterprises (SOEs) was 18% of GDP, and government transfers to SOEs reached 2.1% of GDP in the last fiscal year. It recommends reducing subsidies and transfers sufficient to produce a saving of 1.25% of GDP on the FY2018 budget.

The main bright spot was the reduction in unemployment to 9.9% in May 2017, down from 11.6% in November 11.6%, partly as a result of the completion of the long-stalled Baha Mar megaresort in April. GDP growth is forecast to be 2.5% in 2018, up from 1.75% in 2017. However, the current account deficit, which fell to 12.9% of GDP in 2016 from 13.6% a year earlier, is likely to widen to 17.75% of GDP due in part due to a surge in Baha Mar-related imports. Thereafter, it is expected to fall back to around 7% of GDP.

The Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), in its quarterly bulletin for September, noted that the implementation of value-added tax (VAT) in 2015 had been positive but that it had now reached “peak efficiency” and that harvesting additional revenue would not be possible without an increase in VAT rates. Tax revenues increased from 16% of GDP in 2013 to 21% in 2016, partly due to the introduction of VAT. For the IDB, the main problem now is expenditure, not revenue collection. It said: “The path of expenditures in The Bahamas is on an upward trajectory and is currently outpacing revenue gains from implementation of VAT.”

The IDB report concluded: “If this trend continues, declining fiscal space and rising debt levels will limit the government’s ability to direct scarce resources to other pro-growth areas such as vital infrastructure development. Successful reforms of expenditures must include plans to restructure the administration of ministries and state-owned enterprises to provide more efficient service with fewer resources, and to channel savings to partially fund infrastructure maintenance and growth-driven infrastructure development.”

*** FORMER BARBADOS AG ATTACKS ANTI-CORRUPTION ACT. Sir David Simmons, a former chief justice and attorney general, has dismissed the 2012 Prevention of Corruption Act has an ineffective “joke”. In a speech to a forum on corruption in late October, Simmons said the legislation was so flawed “you can drive a cart and ten donkeys through it”.

Simmons, who is a supporter of the opposition Barbados Labour Party (BLP) and currently head of the Integrity Commission in the Turks and Caicos Islands (TCI), said that one of the main deficiencies was the lack of investigative power. He said: “You cannot function effectively unless you have investigators who will go and chase up things, who are skilled investigators. We have four in [TCI], three of whom are British.” He added: “Our [investigators] have powers of arrest. When we arrest you, we hand you over to the police to take the matter on from there.”

*** ANTIGUA CUTS COST OF CITIZENSHIP BY INVESTMENT. The prime minister of Antigua & Barbuda, Gaston Browne, told parliament on 12 October that the cost of acquiring citizenship through contributions to the National Development Fund (NDF) would be reduced to US$100,000 from US$200,000. He said that there had only been three applications over the past two months, generating just US$600,000. The option of gaining citizenship through real estate investment will remain at US$400,000, and the business investment option will maintain its price tag of US$1.5m.

Interestingly, a recent move by the St Kitts & Nevis (SKN) government to reduce the investment required by a four-member family to acquire citizenship was met with considerable criticism. The amount was reduced from US$300,000 to US$150,000 for those paying into a newly created Hurricane Relief Fund. The move was widely criticised as an attempt to undercut the CBI programmes of Dominica and Antigua & Barbuda, both of which were much more seriously affected by the hurricanes than SKN. Mahdi Mohammed, CEO of the CBI advisory firm Guide Consultants, described it as a “shameful move”.

Mohammed added: “This is simply a ploy, a blatantly opportunistic move to improve the competitiveness of the St Kitts & Nevis CBI programme at the expense of their Caribbean neighbours…Dominica has lost every source of government revenue except its CBI programme, and St Kitts & Nevis is attempting to undermine that.” Sir Ronald Sanders, Antigua & Barbuda’s ambassador to the US, described the move as “a most unfortunate development”.

*** NEW LEADER FOR BAHAMAS OPPOSITION. In a vote on 25 October for the leadership of the Progressive Labour Party (PLP), the main opposition party in The Bahamas, Philip Brave Davis won easily, securing 1,004 votes to 300 for Glenys Hanna-Martin, another MP. The PLP was ousted from power on 10 May in a landslide victory for the Free National Movement (FNM) which left the PLP with only four seats in parliament.

*** TRINIDAD’S OPPOSITION UNC TO HOLD LEADERSHIP VOTE. The United National Congress (UNC), currently led by former prime minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar (2010-2015), will hold a leadership election on 26 November. Dr Roodal Moonilal, who challenged Persad-Bissessar in the 2015 internal elections, has said he will not stand for election this time because he has “quite a few other matters on his table”. Moonilal is facing a corruption investigation. Another potential challenger, Dr Surujrattan Rambachan, has said he will support the current leader but that he wants to see a “more vibrant” national executive (Natex). He said: “I am supporting her but will have reservations about the quality of the people on Natex, we need a mix of professional people and political activists”.

MEXICO | Fintech law approved. On 1 March, Mexico’s federal chamber of deputies gave final approval to the so-called ‘Fintech law’ bill that seeks to regulate the provision of financial technology services (Fintech) such as crowdfunding, digital wallets, cryptocurrencies, and any other virtual assets. The bill was tabled by the federal government in October 2017, approved by the federal senate two months later and now passed to President Enrique Peña Nieto for promulgation. It confers upon Mexico’s economic and financial authorities, including the central bank (Banxico), the national banking and securities commission (CNBV), and the federal finance ministry (SHCP), the power to regulate and control these services.

Proponents of the bill say that the legislation is necessary because there is currently no regulation for a sector that is becoming increasingly popular and is only expected to grow in the future. Indeed, there are currently 230 Fintech providers in Mexico, making it the largest Fintech market in Latin America. Meanwhile, a study by Spanish consultancy firm, Bankia Fintech by Innsomnia, estimates that in 10 years Fintech could account for 30% of Mexico’s entire banking sector. The bill calls for the establishment of an interinstitutional committee comprised of CNBV, Banxico, and SHCP representatives tasked with coming up with the secondary legislation that will establish the actual rules that will govern the Fintech sector and must mitigate the risks of money laundering and the financing of terrorism in line with international standards.

Following the approval of the bill, the recently appointed CNBV president, Bernardo González, explained that the authorities now have a period of six months to draft the requisite secondary legislation. González said that this would include rules regulating the virtual asset market, including determining which cryptocurrencies and other virtual assets can be legally traded in Mexico and which ones cannot. The secondary legislation must also outline the administrative and penal sanctions to which firms and individuals that misuse Fintech will be subject.

In the second half of 2020, political opposition groups in Nicaragua had already denounced a fresh wave of repression by the Frente Sandinista de Liberación Nacional (FSLN) government led by President Daniel Ortega ahead of the November 2021 general election. They cited the passage of new legislation such as a foreign agents’ law, a new cyber security law [SSR-20-11], and a constitutional amendment bill which would allow life sentences in prison for “hate crimes” (since approved last month). These concerns about increasing repression have since been compounded by the approval of a new law in late December 2020, which these groups warn would outright prevent them from participating in the election.

Approved on 21 December 2020, the ‘law for the rights of the people to independence, sovereignty, and self-determination for peace’ prohibits anyone who has “led or financed a coup d’état, fomented terrorist acts, or incited foreign interference” from standing for election. These are all accusations levelled by the Ortega administration against its political opponents, whom it has accused of trying to enact a coup and of pressing for international sanctions, following the eruption of anti-government protests in April 2018.

As with the previous legislation denounced by the opposition as repressive, the new law prompted an international response. The same day that it was approved, the Organization of American States (OAS) issued a statement calling for its repeal, expressing “deep concern” and warning that it represented “a clear attack on the basic principles of a democratic state, in accordance with the provisions of the Inter-American Democratic Charter”. It adds that it would deny Nicaraguans “the right to freely choose their representatives, transforming the 2021 elections into an imposition rather than an election” (see sidebar). In a statement the following day, the High Representative of the European Union (EU) for Foreign Affairs, Josep Borrell, described the legislation as “yet another step in the intimidation of the Nicaraguan people, moving the county further away from rule of law”. The EU had already warned the Nicaraguan government in October 2020 of further economic sanctions citing democracy concerns [SSR-20-11].

Other complaints

The latest legislation featured as a cause for concern in a report presented on 8 January by opposition group Unidad Nacional Azul y Blanco (Unab) regarding human rights violations in Nicaragua in 2020. Warning that these laws violate constitutional rights, compromise the November 2021 election, as well as being set-up to “criminalise, silence, and penalise political opposition and independent journalism”, the Unab report adds that 52 of its leaders were either arrested or persecuted in 2020. More generally it puts the total number of political prisoners in the country currently at 120, of whom 110 were imprisoned after the April 2018 protests while 64 were arrested in 2020.

  Unab also says that independent journalists suffered more than 943 attacks between July and December 2020; that over 50 attacks against the Catholic Church were registered last year; and warns that this pattern of violence and repression will only intensify this year.

   Five days earlier local human rights monitoring group, Monitorio Azul y Blanco, released its monthly report on political violence in Nicaragua for December 2020. According to that report, 310 violent incidents occurred in December, up from 255 cases in November, but down from 350 reported in October. According to the report, in December this included 195 cases of harassment, 35 arrests, 29 aggressions, 23 incidents of threats, 22 prosecutions, 15 cases of torture or inhuman treatment, and eight deaths, among others. Most of these cases happened in the departments of Managua (40%), followed by Masaya (11%), Granada (8%), and Madriz (8%).

• OAS

OAS Secretary General Luis Almagro already warned back in June 2020 that he would request that member states declare a “rupture of the democratic order” in Nicaragua. This was in line with the latest OAS report presented in November 2019 which found that the actions by the government since April 2018 qualify as undemocratic under Article 20 of the OAS Democratic Charter.

Trinidad & Tobago’s finance minister, Colm Imbert, has sought to justify the country’s policies despite the 23 November downgrade by international credit ratings agency Moody’s from Ba1 to Ba2. In response to the downgrade, he said: “This decision by Moody’s collides with the policy advice we have received from all international organisations to protect our country and support the recovery in the current circumstances…[The use of fiscal policy] helped avoid destruction of the economic and social fabric and was both sensible and sensitive in our view.” The problem for Imbert, however, is that there is not necessarily any incompatibility between Moody’s assessment of increasing risk and the fact that his policies have generally been in line with the advice of “all international organisations”, by which he primarily means the International Monetary Fund (IMF). The fact that the IMF and others believe that Trinidad has been doing what it must do to protect the country’s economic and social fabric in the face of the coronavirus (Covid-19) pandemic is not incompatible with the conclusion that these policies involve increased risk for the country’s creditors.

Moody’s justified its decision by saying: “The Ba2 rating reflects the sovereign’s [TT’s] diminished shock-absorption capacity in the aftermath of the pandemic, evidenced by a materially higher general government debt burden of 85-90% of GDP over the next three years, up from 62% in fiscal 2019.” The agency added: “A higher debt burden will result in a weaker credit profile even with a strong economic recovery in 2022 (of 5.9%) and GDP growth of about 2% in 2023-24 driven to a large extent by both higher energy prices and hydrocarbon production levels.” Moody’s main concern, over the longer term, is the “mature profile of the hydrocarbon sector” and the “limited progress in economic diversification”. However, despite the downgrade, Moody’s did give Trinidad a “stable” outlook based on its view that the government’s efforts “will prove effective in improving the fiscal position by increasing non-hydrocarbon revenue and curtailing spending”.

The present increase in the debt burden is a result of pandemic-related fiscal support “which drove the fiscal deficit to 11.2% of GDP last fiscal year and 9.2% this year” plus economic contractions every year since 2016. After a projected recovery of 5.9% in 2022, Moody’s is projecting annual GDP growth “of about 2% in 2023-24” against the government’s projections of growth above 3.5% in 2023 and 2024.

Two days before Moody’s passed its latest judgement on the Trinidad & Tobago economy, the IMF had issued the preliminary findings on its 2021 Article IV Consultation, and these did support Imbert’s contention that his policies had the IMF’s seal of approval. The IMF statement, issued on 21 November, said: “Trinidad and Tobago faced unprecedented challenges in 2020-21. The combined effects of Covid-19, energy production cuts, and price shocks pushed the economy further into recession. The authorities’ decisive policy response helped contain Covid-19’s spread, protect lives and livelihoods, and pave the way for a strong recovery.”

Imbert couldn’t really have asked for more than that, although the key IMF recommendation was that “once the recovery is firmly in place, policy attention should focus on reducing public debt levels and rebuilding fiscal buffers, supported by a credible fiscal framework”.

Both Moody’s and the IMF point to an estimated economic contraction of 1% in 2021, following the 7.4% contraction in 2020. For 2022, the IMF is projecting growth of 5.7%, slightly below Moody’s projection of 5.9%. On the fiscal deficit, Moody’s is looking for a 9.2% deficit this fiscal year (ending 30 September 2022), falling to 5.8% the following year. The IMF is working on slightly different figures, saying: “The fiscal deficit is projected to narrow to 7.5% of GDP in FY 2022, reflecting a combination of higher revenue mobilisation and modest spending cuts. Over the medium term, the fiscal deficit is projected to gradually narrow and reach balance by FY2027.”

The IMF says that public debt, which reached 87% of GDP in FY2021, will “remain above the soft target of 65% of GDP over the projection horizon”.

With regard to the outlook, the IMF sees the risks “tilted to the downside”, largely due to risks beyond the country’s control such as a resurgence of the pandemic with new strains emerging, weakening energy demand and prices, and “unexpected supply-chain or logistics issues [that] could affect levels of energy production”. The IMF is urging the government to prepare a contingency plan and to publish a full report on its Covid-19 related spending.

The IMF is by no means taking a hawkish line on Trinidad’s policy dilemmas. Indeed, it specifically states: “Careful planning and coordination will be essential to withdraw support gradually and avoid undermining the recovery”. It also says that the government’s plan to keep expenditure at last year’s levels is appropriate and justified because “the availability of fiscal buffers allows continued temporary high spending to mitigate the effects of the pandemic”.

The IMF also says that the medium-term fiscal plan should be “growth-friendly and inclusive” while at the same time aiming to reduce public debt and rebuild buffers. It calls on the government to improve revenues through “tax reforms and expenditure rationalisation”. On the expenditure side, the IMF is urging the government to “streamline” transfers to state-owned enterprises (SOEs) and to “phase out” subsidies.

Both Moody’s and the IMF agree that diversification of the economy is essential. Moody’s notes that the hydrocarbons sector accounts for about 25% of GDP and “close to 80% of exports”, but it is a mature sector and the “significant reliance on hydrocarbons for government revenue and export earnings leaves TT highly vulnerable to price and production downturns”. As the agency points out, the risk can already be seen in the fall in per capita income levels from US$29,053 in 2015 to US$23,359 this year.

But if the answer for Moody’s is diversification, it also warns that “economic diversification takes time” and structural factors including skills, mismatches in the labour market, high import dependence, and shortages of foreign exchange “will likely limit diversification prospects”.

The IMF equally urges the need for diversification, saying “policies to develop the non-energy sector are critical to support medium-term inclusive growth and enhance resilience”. The reforms it says are necessary to achieve this include removing obstacles to doing business and improving education and vocational training “to help address skills mismatches and boost productivity and stimulate entrepreneurship”.

Although Imbert has enthusiastically cited the IMF in defence of the country’s Covid-19 response, and as an attempted rebuttal of the Moody’s downgrade, he has been equally adamant that there can be no formal recourse to IMF aid. In his 3 October budget speech, he warned against the downsides of entering an IMF programme, adding that, other than surveillance, technical assistance, and capacity advice, “we see no need to seek any…form of assistance from the IMF at this time on in the near future”.

On 10 October a major Paraguayan criminal organisation, Clan Rotela, seized control of one of the country’s main prisons, Tacumbú, taking over 40 hostages. The gang released its hostages the following day and President Santiago Peña gave a press conference in which he denied that there was a “crisis”. However, the incident has prompted debates over the power that organised crime groups wield within the country’s prison system.

The gang members took hostages including prison guards and visitors. The week before the prison riot, the country’s justice minister, Ángel Barchini reported during a cabinet meeting on 2 October that a former police officer and Tacumbú inmate, Óliver Lezcano, had disappeared. Barchini suggested that Lezcano may have escaped or that Clan Rotela members may have murdered and dismembered him. At the meeting, Barchini also claimed that Clan Rotela had infiltrated the justice ministry and called for staff to undergo polygraph tests to find out who might be leaking information.

The justice minister said that he had a “plan” against the powerful criminal gang. He did not provide further details but did admit that it “is going to cost human lives”, although he added that it would allow the authorities to “retake power of penitentiary centres”. According to local media reports, the Clan Rotela rioters at Tacumbú criticised Barchini’s comments, not only for the anti-gang plan but also for the suggestions that they might have murdered the former police officer.

According to local media reports, the Tacumbú prison essentially functions as base of operations for Clan Rotela. The gang’s leader, Armando Javier Rotela, is an inmate and nearly half of the prison’s roughly 2,700 inmates have ties to his organisation. In exchange for ending the 10 October prison takeover, the gang demanded that the government cease its efforts to transfer inmates out of the prison. On 12 October national daily ABC Color reported that Rotela had also demanded that the authorities transfer 80 of his gang members held in other facilities to Tacumbú.

Part of the government’s plan to address prison overcrowding is to simply build more prisons, with three new penitentiaries under construction. One is in Minga Guazú, a city in south-eastern department of Alto Paraná, and two others are in Emboscada, in the central department of Cordillera. However, national daily Última Hora reported on 14 October that the prisons were nowhere near ready. The public works minister, Claudia Centurión, checked on the progress of the three prisons on 13 October and stated that, in one of the prisons, the jail cell doors could be unlocked very easily. The public works ministry released a statement on 13 October stressing the importance of completing these new prisons as soon as possible to ease the burden on other prisons, but expressed concern over the lack of financing that such construction projects are receiving.

The government recognises that building more prisons is not a silver bullet for the endemic problems afflicting the prison system. Following the Tacumbú riot, Barchini visited various prisons around the country, such as the regional penitentiaries of Ciudad del Este, Alto Paraná, on 22 October, and of Villarrica, in the southern department of Guairá, on 4 November. During both visits, the justice ministry representatives noted the need for better social reintegration programmes for prisoners, so that joining gangs such as Clan Rotela becomes a less appealing prospect during and after their time in prison. In Villarrica, Barchini also announced that he would seek private investment for reintegration projects.

Prison overcrowding

Paraguay’s prisons have long been known to be overcrowded and under-resourced, creating ideal conditions for criminal gangs to find recruits and take control of the penitentiaries. The US State Department’s Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, & Labour noted in 2022 that the average prison occupancy rate was 63% above designed capacity. According to figures updated in May 2023 by World Prison Brief (WPB), published by the UK-based Institute for Criminal Policy Research, Paraguay’s prison population was 17,006, equivalent to 233 inmates per 100,000 of the national population. Out of the total prison population, over two thirds were being held in pre-trial detention.

Teresa Reyes Sahagún, the controversial head of Mexico’s national search commission (CNB), will be stepping down from her role on 31 August, the interior ministry (Segob) has announced. Reyes, who is affiliated with the ruling left-wing Movimiento Regeneración Nacional (Morena), has been in the role since October 2023, when she was appointed following the resignation of Karla Quintana, who left amid reported differences with the government of former president Andrés Manuel López Obrador (2018-2024).

In its statement, Segob said it would publish the rules for the public consultation process to select Reyes’ successor next week, noting that this would include victims’ groups, experts, and civil society organisations specialised in forced disappearance and the search for missing people.

This is significant given that the process to select Reyes drew criticism from rights groups for failing to include families of the disappeared and search collectives. Scrutiny will remain high on the process to select the next CNB head, with local human rights group Centro de Derechos Humanos Miguel Agustín Pro Juárez (Centro Prodh) stating the successful candidate must be chosen for their technical expertise, and not their political affinities.

Pemex gets boost

Mexico’s finance ministry (SHCP) announced on 29 July the completion of a US$12bn debt offering to support state-run oil company Pemex. The SHCP first announced that it would issue the pre-capitalised notes, or P-Caps, on 22 July. While the debt offering was originally planned to total US$10bn, the SHCP stated that larger-than-expected demand for the securities allowed it to place more. The resources generated by the offering will be put towards covering Pemex’s financial obligations and debt payments due this year and next. The offering comes as Pemex reported net income of M$60bn (US$3.2bn) for the second quarter, its first quarterly profit in more than a year.

Nissan shutters key factory

Japanese carmaker Nissan announced on 30 July that it will stop production at its Civac plant in Mexico’s central state of Morelos by March 2026 as part of a wider global restructuring plan. The company plans on integrating vehicle production from that plant into its complex in the northern state of Aguascalientes.

The carmaker first started operations at the Civac plant in 1966 in its first expansion outside Japan. It has produced more than 6.5m vehicles so far, according to Nissan. The move comes as Nissan has also announced that it is going to stop production at two of its plants in Japan as part of the restructuring plan.

The move will fuel fears in Mexico around the impact of the tariffs that US President Donald Trump has imposed on automotive imports. It comes after US car manufacturer General Motors (GM) announced in June that it will invest US$4bn in three US plants over the next two years to increase US production, affecting production of certain models in Mexico which are currently assembled at its plants in Coahuila and San Luis Potosí states.

Sebastián Marset, the alleged leader of the Primer Cartel Uruguayo (PCU), was arrested in the Bolivian city of Santa Cruz on 13 March. His capture and extradition to the US marks an early boost for President Rodrigo Paz, who has pledged to make counter-narcotics a top priority and a core plank of a new, Washington-oriented foreign policy. Marset is accused of being a central player in the trafficking of cocaine to Europe, working alongside international criminal partners such as Brazil’s Primeiro Comando da Capital (PCC), the Insfrán clan in Paraguay, and the Italian ‘Ndrangheta.

Marset, the self-styled ‘King of the South’ – a slogan which was stamped on bricks of cocaine he is accused of trafficking – is a Uruguayan citizen but appears to have been based out of Bolivia in recent years. The PCU, which originated in Uruguay, is also active in Paraguay, Brazil, Portugal, and the Netherlands, according to the US Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), which claimed in a 16 March statement that Marset is “the leader of a large-scale drug trafficking organisation that distributed thousands of kilograms of cocaine” and used US financial institutions to launder drug proceeds.

Marset is also accused by authorities in Colombia and Paraguay of ordering the May 2022 assassination of Marcelo Pecci, Paraguay’s special prosecutor against organised crime who was gunned down while honeymooning on Colombia’s Caribbean coast [SSR-22-06]. Pecci was a leading figure in ‘A Ultranza Py’, Paraguay’s largest ever counter-narcotics operation, which was launched in February 2022 and in which Marset was a key target.

Having evaded an attempt to arrest him in Santa Cruz back in July 2023, which Marset claimed on social media that he was warned of by a high-level informant in Bolivia’s counter-narcotics agency (FELCN), the authorities took no chances the second time round. Police established a security cordon across a wide area of the Las Palmas neighbourhood of the city, imposing controls on movement as raids were carried out at various locations before Marset was arrested. Within hours he was extradited to the US, where he was arraigned in a Virginia courtroom on charges of laundering drug money on 17 March.

There was potential for a tussle over Marset’s extradition, given that he is also sought by Paraguay in relation to Pecci’s murder, and in his home country of Uruguay. However, although Paraguay’s Attorney General Emiliano Rolón did say that Marset might be sought by Paraguay, the country’s interior minister, Enrique Riera, said subsequently that the country in which Marset is detained matters less than the fact that he faces justice for his alleged crimes.

Uruguay’s President Yamandú Orsi seemed similarly relaxed about his country’s failure to secure Marset’s extradition, saying that “let’s not forget that Paraguay had the strongest claim, and also the US, and Bolivia of course – us too, but perhaps with less urgency as he didn’t face such serious charges here as in other countries”.

Paz signals new era in Bolivian counter-narcotics

President Paz claimed that Marset’s capture epitomises a hardening stance against drug trafficking since he took office in November last year. Describing the alleged PCU leader as “one of the biggest drug traffickers on the continent”, Paz said that his arrest “must be the most important security development since our democratic era began [in 1982]”. It comes as Paz is seeking to establish Bolivia as an important security partner to Washington, which has seen him sign up to the new US-led Shield of the Americas security initiative.

In a major turnaround in US-Bolivia relations, Interior Minister Marco Oviedo said on 23 February that the DEA is active in Bolivia for the first time since 2008, when it was expelled by former president Evo Morales (2006-2019). Oviedo did not go into detail and said that “just as the DEA is now present, we also have cooperation from European intelligence and police bodies… We want neighbouring countries’ counter-narcotics agencies on board as well”.

Blaming the MAS

The Paz administration has accused the left-wing Movimiento al Socialismo (MAS) governments of Evo Morales (2006-2019) and Luis Arce (2020-2025) of turning a blind eye to drug trafficking, arguing that a years-long failure to keep coca cultivation under the 22,000-hectare legal limit has created opportunities for criminal groups [SSR-26-01]. Interior Minister Marco Oviedo claimed on 13 March that “Marset used Bolivia as a base because he found impunity and protection here under the previous government”.

Former counter-narcotics chief sentenced in US

Maximiliano Dávila, who served as head of Bolivia’s counter-narcotics agency (FELCN) during the final months of Morales’ presidency in 2019, was sentenced on 19 March to 25 years in prison in the US on drug trafficking and weapons charges. He was accused of importing cocaine into the US, with the Department of Justice stating that his “methods included both diverting law enforcement from investigating favored cocaine traffickers and providing heavily armed FELCN personnel as security for cocaine shipments leaving Bolivian airports.”

Dávila’s conviction is just the latest embarrassment for the FELCN, where several former leaders have been accused of colluding with drug traffickers [SSR-25-01]. One of Dávila’s predecessors as head of the agency, René Sanabria (2008-2009), is serving a 10-year prison sentence handed down by a Bolivian court in 2022, after he was repatriated at the end of an 11-year sentence in the US for drug trafficking. Another former FELCN head, José María Velasco (2020-2022), was fired by former president Luis Arce (2020-2025) following

Higher oil prices helped the country’s trade deficit in the first 10 months of 2011 fall from US$1.5bn in the same period of 2010 to US$1.3bn this year, down 16%, according to the central bank.

The central banks said that the trade surplus on oil was up by 24% on the first 10 months of 2010 at US$5.6bn. Oil exports were up by 27% at US$9.96bn while import of fuel and other refined products, up 32%, came to US$4.36bn.

The country’s non-oil trade account ran a higher deficit (up 14% on the first 10 months of 2010) at US$6.9bn. This set a new record. Non-oil exports in the first 10 months came to US$7.73bn, up 17% while non-oil imports came to US$14.6bn, up 20% on the first 10 months of 2010.

The country’s biggest non-oil export was bananas which came to US$1.87bn in the first 10 months of 2011.

The government is trying to use tariffs and the Impuesto a la Salida de Divisas (ISD, which went up from 2% to 5% as part of the government’s controversial  package of tax increases which was implemented even though congress rejected the package in a vote) to make imports more expensive. To be fair, the bulk of the increase in imports in the first 10 months of 2011 came in imports of raw materials (up by US$1.1bn, year-on-year, to US$4.36bn) and capital goods (up US$621m, year-on-year). Consumer goods imports were up US$455m.

The country’s big economic problem is that the success of its commodity exports (oil, bananas, shrimp and fish and flowers)  has fed demand for local industrial products which are, essentially, not internationally competitive. The government believes that it can reverse this situation and can establish competitive export industries. Santiago León, the minister-coordinator of production, argues that the increase in the bill for capital goods and raw materials shows that this strategy is working. Sceptics argue that the increase in the bill for raw materials simply reflects higher international prices, not increased volumes.

Inflation: In November monthly inflation was 0.3%, slightly down on October’s rate of 0.35%. The lagging 12 month rate is 5.5%, well above the rate for the 12 months to November 2010 which was 3.4%. For 2011, the rate is likely to be well over the 3% target set by the central bank.

Tourism: In the first 11 months of the year, 1.027m tourists visited the country. This was 14% up on the same period of 2010. Colombians are the most numerous visitors (at 235, 516) followed by the US (215,970); Peru (133,985) and Spain (55,441). The target for 2011 was to have 1.1m tourists. In 2010 there were 1.047m. 

MÉXICO | Crecimiento insignificante en ingresos de hogares. El ingreso promedio en los hogares mexicanos (a precios constantes) se incrementó en sólo 1,5% entre el 2010 y el 2012, reveló el 16 de julio el instituto nacional de estadísticas de México. Los desalentadores resultados muestran el bajo nivel de beneficios económicos que la población de México ha recibido en el último par de años, a pesar de que la economía interna ha experimentado una robusta recuperación (incrementándose en 5,5%) en el 2010, después de haber sufrido una aguda contracción en el 2009 como resultado de la crisis financiera global.

     El país continúa informando de respetables tasas de crecimiento de 4,0% y 4,9% respectivamente para los próximos dos años. Sin embargo, las últimas cifras de Inegi muestran que esto no ha sido suficiente como para impactar realmente en los niveles de pobreza en México, exhibiendo el desafío que enfrenta el gobierno del Presidente Peña Nieto, quien luego de asumir el poder prometió poner la reducción de la pobreza en lo más alto de su lista de prioridades.

     De acuerdo con Inegi, el ingreso promedio de los 31,5m de hogares de México el año pasado fue de M$38.125 (US$3.001). Mientras tanto, el promedio de gastos por hogares fueron de M$33.746 (US$2.657), 0,4% más elevado que en el 2010. Tomando todas estas cifras en consideración, Inegi ha calculado que el componente del coeficiente Gini, que mide la desigualdad de ingresos (donde 0 es igualdad perfecta y 1 desigualdad perfecta) se ha incrementado de 0,435 a 0,440.

MÉXICO | Resultado poco satisfactorio de la última licitación de Pemex. El 11 de julio, la firma petrolera estatal de México, Pemex, anunció que había otorgado exitosamente tres de las seis concesiones de exploración y producción en su yacimiento de Chicontepec que había sido sometido a licitación pública.

     El hecho que solamente la mitad de las concesiones ofertadas fueron otorgadas destaca de nuevo la ausencia de interés del sector privado en invertir en el sector petrolero de México, bajo las actuales circunstancias, bajo la cual Pemex tiene un monopolio constitucionalmente sancionado sobre la producción petrolera.

     Después de años de declinante producción en Pemex, fueron introducidas reformas menores en el sector de la energía en el 2008, que permitió por primera vez que firmas privadas actúen como socios de Pemex, vía contratos basados en incentivos, en un intento por estimular la producción. Sin embargo, el esquema no ha resultado muy atractivo ara el sector privado, con solamente un puñado de firmas participando en esos contratos. De hecho, el aparente fracaso de la reforma de la energía del 2008 es lo que ha llevado al Presidente Enrique Peña Nieto a anunciar sus planes para reformar aún más el sector, para iniciar la apertura hacia una incrementada inversión privada.

     Muchos en México se oponen a una reforma mayor, temiendo que eso podría resultar en la privatización total del sector. Pero los desalentadores resultados de la última licitación provee a la administración de Peña Nieto más argumentos para impulsar sus planes de reforma.

     Chicontepec es un importante yacimiento localizado en las costas de México Oriental, que se cree que contiene el equivalen a unos 139mm de barriles de petróleo (40% de las reservas probadas, probables y posibles [3p] de México). Sin embargo, la producción en la formación rocosa ha resultado ser difícil, y Pemex sólo ha logrado extraer cantidades relativamente pequeñas de petróleo (68.000 barriles por día), desde su descubrimiento en 1926. Por tanto, la perspectiva de explotar el yacimiento de Chicontepec debería ser –bajo circunstancias normales– muy atractiva para los inversionistas.

     Aunque 16 firmas petroleras nacionales y extranjeras expresaron interés en el proceso de licitación, al final sólo fueron sometidas cuatro ofertas –de Halliburton de EU; Repsol, de España; las firmas locales, Petrolite de México, y Operadora de Campos DWF. Halliburton, Petrolite, y Operadora de Campos, fueron las tres firmas que obtuvieron concesiones por 35 años, después que Repsol se retiró en el último minuto.

     Bajo los contratos basados en incentivos, se permite a las firmas privadas extraer petróleo, que luego deben vender a Pemex a un precio fijo. El hecho que ellas no pueden vender el petróleo extraído a precios más rentables en los mercados internacionales, es un gran disuasor para los potenciales inversionistas. La última licitación fue la tercera de esta clase desde 2008. Menos de 10 firmas privadas buscaron presentar ofertas en todas las licitaciones combinadas.

     Sin causar ninguna sorpresa, el director de exploración y producción de Pemex, Carlos Morales, dijo que estaba satisfecho con los resultados de la licitación, y que Pemex lanzaría un nuevo proceso de licitación en las “próximas dos o tres semanas”. “Esperamos que habrá más participación para extraer esos barriles de petróleo que están ahí abajo y que nosotros tanto necesitamos aquí arriba,” dijo Morales.

• Interjet llega a Colombia

La aerolínea mexicana de bajo costo, Interjet, la segunda aerolínea más lucrativa de la región, anunció el 11 de julio que había comenzado a operar un nuevo vuelo diario directo Ciudad México-Bogotá. Bogotá se ha convertido en el noveno destino internacional de Interjet, y su primero en Sudamérica (la compañía actualmente ofrece vuelos desde México a EU y Centroamérica). El CEO de Interjet, José Luis Garza Álvarez, dijo que el nuevo servicio, que une las capitales de dos países miembros de la Alianza del Pacífico, “ofrecerá servicios de catering a todos aquellos que viajan a México y Colombia por negocios o placer”. Garza Álvarez agregó que “el mercado Colombia-México es muy importante considerando que las dos economías se han vuelto crecientemente vinculadas, hay una cantidad de negocios entre los dos, y la tendencia es que eso se incremente”.