LatinNews Daily - 01 October 2025

*El Salvador’s finance ministry has presented its proposed budget for 2026 before the 60-member unicameral legislature for US$10.6bn, up 9.2% on the 2025 budget. According to the finance ministry, this is the second year that a ‘zero deficit’ budget has been approved without the need to issue extra debt. According to a national assembly press release, of the total, US$3.9bn will go on education, health, and public security. Education will receive US$1.5bn, up 6.9% on the 2025 budget, health will receive US$1.3bn, up 12.3%, and public security will receive US$1.0bn, up 14.8%. The same press release highlights that the budget provides for the government to boost basic grain production through an agriculture bonus (for which US$46.6m has been assigned), while US$238.7m has been allocated to finance various subsidies including liquid petroleum gas (US$114.6m), public transport (US$60.0m), and electricity (US$64.1m). The same statement highlights the improved efficiency of tax collection by modernising related infrastructure and underlines that due to greater trade dynamism, in the first eight months of 2025, tax take totalled US$5.8bn, up from the US$5.7bn projected by the finance ministry. The proposal now goes to the legislature which is controlled by authoritarian President Nayib Bukele’s Nuevas Ideas (NI) party.

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