Economy & Business - January 2024

ECUADOR | S&P lowers outlook due to gang violence. On 11 January the international credit ratings agency Standard & Poor’s (S&P) lowered Ecuador’s outlook to ‘negative’ from ‘stable’, noting that “the government’s capacity to implement corrective [fiscal] policies will likely be limited…by the need to tackle increasing violence". Despite the worsening outlook, S&P maintained Ecuador’s credit rating at ‘B-’. S&P said that the emergency measures introduced by President Daniel Noboa in response to spiralling gang violence “might increase public acceptance of difficult economic decisions in the short term”. However, it added that “the full repercussions of the security problem on the economy and on future policymaking have yet to be seen”.