Weekly Report - 6 April 2004

TRINIDAD & TOBAGO | Monitoring regional lending. The central bank is monitoring local commercial banks to ensure that they do not endanger the system by overlending to high-risk Caribbean governments. This was confirmed last week by junior finance minister Conrad Enill, after the economist Dhanyshar Mahabir raised the alarm about a practice that has been growing over the past three years. Since late last year, for example, the government of Jamaica has raised about US$110m through Trinidadian banks.

GUATEMALA | Remittances rising. In the first two months of the year, remittances from Guatemalans resident in the US reached US$378.4m, or 22.3% more than in the same period of last year. At this rate, the total for the year as a whole could be around US$2.3bn, compared with last year's US$2.1bn.

There are an estimated 1.2m Guatemalans living in the US, of whom about 60% are reckoned to be illegal immigrants.

JAMAICA | Expatriates as potential investors. The government is targeting Jamaicans residing overseas as a source of investment funds, according to senator Delano Franklyn, state minister in the ministry of foreign affairs. The Jamaican diaspora is reckoned to be worth about US$40bn.

Remittances by Jamaican expatriates have increased more than tenfold since the mid-1990s, to US$1.3bn last year. 

CUBA | Growth of non-state sector. Data from the labour & social security ministry shows that about 900,000, or almost 20% of the population, are currently working in cooperatives or are self-employed. The official rate of unemployment is 2.3%.