Caribbean & Central America - May 2007 (ISSN 1741-4458)
NICARAGUA: ECONOMIC OVERVIEW
The government's second round of talks with the IMF concluded on 11 May. The IMF delegation was led by Vikram Haksar who said that the aim of the agreement was to reduce poverty.
Bayardo Arce, the government's economic adviser, said that the IMF considered the government's economic strategy to be solid and consistent, though he admitted that the IMF would like to see some revisions in some numbers on health, housing and education because of its doubts that the government actually had the money to commit.
Arce said that he expected a third, and probably final, round of negotiations before the end of June.
Inflation: In April inflation was 1.01%. This brought the rate for the first four months of 2007 to 4.26%. The rate for the past 12 months was 9.20% above the 2006 rate of 8.5%.