Latest data
PERU: Inflation increased by 0.19% in July, the national statistics agency INE reported. Accumulated inflation for the first seven months of the year stands at 3.21%.
NICARAGUA: Tourism generated US$79.6m in the first half of 2004, the tourism ministry (Intur) announced, registering an 8.7% increase on the same period in 2003. Some 350,339 foreign tourists visited Nicaragua, Intur reported.
CARIBBEAN: The Dominican Republic attracted the most tourists in the Caribbean in the first five months of the year according to a report carried out by the Caribbean Tourism Organisation (CTO). Almost 1.5m tourists flew into the Dominican Republic during this period, the CTO said. Jamaica attracted 864,368 foreign tourists; 767,148 went to the Bahamas; 465,838 visited Cuba, and 297,653 visited the Mexican coast (Cancún and Cozumel).
ARGENTINA: The number of tourists who have visited Argentina over the past two years has increased by 26.9%. Last year alone the 3.3m visitors contributed US$2bn to the local economy.
COLOMBIA: More than half the population of Colombia is poor and one in six is classified as indigent. According to government statistics, 22.3m Colombians are poor and 7.16m are indigent (living on US$1 a day).
COLOMBIA: Unemployment in Colombia's three largest cities was 15.8% at the end of the first half of 2004. At the national level the rate was 14.1%.
ECUADOR: The government plans to propose a budget to congress on 30 August that would increase expenditures, not including debt servicing, by 5.9% next year. According to Ramiro Galarza, the deputy economy minister, a lot of the government's economic targets for 2005 are tied to the assumption that congress will approve a long-delayed energy reform aimed at increasing foreign investment in the oil sector. Such a reform would guarantee annual economic growth of 6% to 7% over the next five years, Galarza claimed.
BRAZIL: Bank credit at the end of May was 16% higher than a year earlier, according to central bank figures. The stock of loans by banks to individuals and companies stood at R$442bn at the end of May 2004.