Caribbean & Central America - November 2014 (ISSN 1741-4458)

Foreign cooperation: Direct foreign cooperation to Nicaragua reached US$528m in the first semester of 2014, according to the latest (October 2014) report by the Nicaraguan central bank. Of the US$528m total, US$417m were loans and US$111m were donations. Over 65% of the money was directed to the private sector, with the rest going to the public sector.  Despite a drop in cooperation, Venezuela remains the main donor, stumping up US$248.8m during that period including foreign direct investment. Most of the money, US$236.4m, came from Pdvsa, Venezuela’s state oil company. The total marks a 20.8% decrease in Venezuelan cooperation on the same period of 2013, which the central bank attributed to the impact of falling oil prices.

Other significant donors in Nicaragua include: the Central American Bank for Economic Integration (CABEI) (US$86.9m); Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) (US$43.4m); International Development Association (IDA/World Bank) (US$28.9m); the European Union (US$21.8m); International Finance Corporation (IFC/World Bank) (US$20.0m); US (US$19.2m); and Switzerland (US$8.2m). These international flows represent the third largest external resources for Nicaragua (4.5% of total GDP), after exports of goods and services (12.3% GDP) and remittances (4.7% GDP).