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

Foreign cooperation: On 2 April Nicaragua’s Central Bank (BCN) released its report on foreign cooperation in 2011, which revealed that cooperation from Venezuela (which remains outside the State budget) reached US$609m, up 14% from the US$533m received in 2010. According to the report: US$557.4m was via petrol cooperation 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); US$6.7m in bilateral cooperation; and US$45m through foreign direct investment (FDI).  This signifies a change from the previous year, when US$337m came from petrol funds, US$163m via bilateral cooperation and US$11m in FDI. Overall, foreign cooperation totalled US$1.4bn in 2011, up 4.7% from the previous year. Of this, 76.9% corresponded to loans and the rest to donations.

FDI: At the end of March, Nicaragua’s official investment promotion agency, Pronicaragua, revealed that foreign direct investment (FDI) reached US$967.9m during 2011, up 91% on 2010 and a new record for the country. According to Pronicaragua, FDI received in 2011 went mainly on the energy, telecommunications and free zones sectors, which together accounted for 52% of total FDI. Highlighting that Nicaragua attracted a total of 284 foreign investment projects in 2011, up 57% on 2010, the promotion agency also pointed out that the origin of FDI has diversified slightly, growing from 38 countries in 2010 to 41 in 2011.