Caribbean & Central America - April 2013 (ISSN 1741-4458)

 Ructions with private sector over new telecoms decree: Nicaragua’s two largest private sector lobbies, the Consejo Superior de la Empresa privada (Cosep) and Cámara de Comercio Americana de Nicaragua (Amcham) are at loggerheads with the Ortega government over an administrative order issued by the telecoms regulatory institute (Telcor) stipulating that private telecommunications companies require Telcor’s approval for appointments ranging from managers and directors to security personnel.

  All telecoms companies have 30 days to comply with the fiat, which was published in the national gazette on 22 March. Orlando Castillo, the executive president of Telcor, claims the order is necessary to guarantee the “security” of the sector against organised crime. The private sector lobbies, however, argue that the decree violates the constitution, telecommunications and labour legislation and sends a bad signal to foreign investors.

  The two foreign telecoms companies which have a presence in Nicaragua - Spanish telecoms giant, Telefónica, and Claro, a subsidiary of Mexico's América Móvil, which operates the state-controlled Empresa Nicaraguense de Telecomunicaciones (Enitel) have so far yet to adopt a position on the issue. According to the latest figures from Telcor, Telefónica and América Móvil had a 39%-61% share of the mobile phone market in 2011 and a 9% and 66% of the internet market respectively.

Remittances: On 18 March Nicaragua’s central bank released a report which showed that remittance inflows reached US$1.01bn in 2012, up 11.3% on the US$911.6m in 2011. The 2012 figure accounts for 9.1% of GDP, up from 1.3% in 1994. According to the bank, 60.1% of remittances came from the US, up 2% on 2011. This was followed by Costa Rica (19.8%, up 37.4% on 2011); Spain (6.3%, up 11.1%), Panama (2%, up 15.3%), Canada (1.0%, up 2.3%), Mexico (0.9%, up 38.5%) and El Salvador (0.8%, up 12.7%). As regards destination, 30.8% of the remittances went to Managua department, 10.2% to Chinandega, 7.6 % to León, 7.2 % to Estelí and 6.3 % to Matagalpa. According to Nicaragua’s central bank, remittances accounted for 9.1% of Nicaragua’s GDP in 2012. This percentage is 16.4% for El Salvador, 15.7% for Honduras, 9.3% for Guatemala, 5.3% for the Dominican Republic, 1.2% for Costa Rica and 0.9% for Panama.