Caribbean & Central America - April 2012 (ISSN 1741-4458)

Petrocaribe: Last month Pérez Molina floated the possibility of Guatemala joining Petrocaribe, the subsidised oil scheme run by President Hugo Chávez of Venezuela, in a bid to address Guatemala’s spiralling oil bill, which increased 36% in 2011 to reach US$3bn. The proposal serves as the latest illustration of Pérez Molina’s pragmatic bent given the ideological differences with his left-wing Venezuelan peer. Colom had signed up to Petrocaribe, but the agreement was not ratified amid last-minute differences with Venezuela over its terms and conditions. Pérez Molina said he had already discussed the proposal with Chávez, who said there would be “no problem” with Guatemala joining the regional initiative.

Remittances: Remittance inflows reached US$1.06bn the first three months of 2012, up 8.79% on the same period the previous year, according to the latest report from the Central Bank (Banguat). In 2011, remittances reached US$4.38bn, beating the record US$4.31bn set in 2008. According to the International Organization for Migration (IOM), some 1.5m Guatemalans live abroad, 1.3m in the US, the majority of whom are illegal.

Inflation: According to the national statistics institute (INE), the March inflation rate reached 0.33%, which brought the 12-month rate to 4.55%, the second lowest rate in the last decade, following the 3.93% rate registered over the same timeframe in 2009-2010.