Economy & Business - June 2025

Veteran centrist Trinidad & Tobago politician Kamla Persad-Bissessar was sworn in as the country’s new prime minister on 1 May, after her party, the United National Congress (UNC) won a landslide victory on 28 April.... Read More

Colombia’s vicious cycle of political confrontation and falling investor confidence has taken a decided turn for the worse over the past month.... Read More

To help offset the impact of tightened US sanctions, Venezuela’s President Nicolás Maduro is hiking taxes, redoubling currency and price controls, and signing up alternative foreign oil partners.... Read More

Raúl Pérez Reyes was sworn in as Peru’s new economy and finance minister on 13 May, with his predecessor José Salardi replaced as part of a cabinet reshuffle that also saw the prime minister, Gustavo Adrianzén, and interior minister, Julio Diaz Zulueta, shown the door.... Read More

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) published the findings of its latest Article IV consultation with Bolivia on 30 May, expressing deep concern about the trajectory of the economy.... Read More

COLOMBIA | Ecopetrol president investigated.... Read More

Three South American heads of state flocked to Beijing in May for what is usually a ministerial-level forum between China and the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (Celac) – Brazil’s President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, Colombia’s President Gustavo Petro, and Chile’s President Gabriel Boric.... Read More

The debut of the Brazilian food processing giant JBS on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) is an historic achievement for the world’s largest meat packer, but it also renews questions over its troubled past and its commitment to set things right.... Read More

Intentionally or not, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio gave Paraguay a massive plug during his testimony before a US Senate Committee on Foreign Relations in May, advertising the country’s huge potential surplus electricity supplies from the Itaipú hydroelectric dam, that would be ideal to set up energy-intensive service providers for artificial intelligence (AI).... Read More

Uruguay, which had long prided itself on being one of the most equitable and prosperous countries in Latin America, delved into collective soul-searching when the rate of poverty began rising in recent years.... Read More

BRAZIL | Brazilian airline Azul files for bankruptcy.... Read More

On 7 May work began on a major new gold mine in Nicaragua, marking the latest stage in the expansion of an industry which has seen an explosion in the number of concessions granted in recent years despite US sanctions targeting the sector.... Read More

On 22 May Guatemala’s President Bernardo Arévalo agreed a deal with the US to provide technical assistance for expansion projects at the country’s two main ports.... Read More

HONDURAS | Remittances slow in monthly terms.... Read More

Mexico’s plans to reduce its working week gradually from 48 to 40 hours by 2030 have triggered warnings from the private sector, which has stated that reforms that are poorly designed and implemented could deal a major blow to the economy.... Read More

Concerns about corruption may have dogged Mexico’s state oil company Pemex for years, but they reached new highs with the decision by Norway’s wealth fund to sell its investments in the company due to an “unacceptably high” risk that it is involved in “gross corruption”.... Read More

The economic impact of violence cost the country the equivalent of 18% of GDP in 2024, according to the latest edition of a yearly report from Australian think tank the Institute for Economics & Peace (IEP), which was released on 16 May.... Read More

US President Donald Trump’s proposal to impose a 3.5% tax on remittances would cost the Mexican economy more than US$2.6bn per year, according to the Center for Global Development (CGD), a think tank with offices in Washington and London.... Read More

MEXICO | Annual inflation accelerates, exceeds target range.... Read More