Caribbean & Central America - November 2011 (ISSN 1741-4458)

IMF: On 21 October the International Monetary Fund (IMF) completed the seventh and final review of Nicaragua’s economic performance under its Extended Credit Facility (ECF) arrangement and the financing assurances review. This allows for the final disbursement to Nicaragua of about US$8.7m. Total disbursements so far had been about US$114.1m. The IMF approved a three-year ECF (formerly known as the Poverty Reduction and Growth Facility) of about US$111m in October 2007, which was increased by about US$10m in September 2008 to enable Nicaragua to cope with the natural disasters of 2007. In November 2010, the IMF approved an extension of the arrangement until 4 December 2011.

Venezuelan cooperation: Nicaragua's central bank (BCN) released a report on foreign cooperation showing that aid from Venezuela – which is omitted from the State budget - reached US$344.6m in the first half of 2011. Of this, US$6.7m was in bilateral cooperation, US$45m in foreign direct investment (FDI) through the mega-refinery, "El Supremo Sueño de Bolívar” while the bulk of it (US$292.9m) was petrol aid, through Albanisa (the bi-national state oil company set up in 2007, 51% of which is owned by Venezuela's Petróleos de Venezuela (Pdvsa) and the remainder by Nicaragua's Petronic). Total aid from Venezuela in 2010 was US$533m, according to the BCN, up from the US$511m reported in April last [RC-11-04]. Overall, the report showed that foreign cooperation totalled US$585m in the first half of 2011, 9.6% less than in the same period in 2010. Of this, US$383.3m went to the private sector, US$93.3m less than the same period the previous year. The amount assigned to the public sector grew by US$31.3m to US$201.7m over the same period.