LatinNews Daily - 20 July 2023

* Honduras’s central bank (BCH) has released new figures showing that exports totalled US$5.01bn in the first five months of 2023, down 4.3% year-on-year - a drop explained by fewer exports of maquila goods which were down 11.2% to total US$2.16bn. Meanwhile imports totalled US$7.91bn, down 6.1% on the same period in 2022. This leaves a trade deficit of US$2.89bn, 9.1% less than in the same period in 2022. Honduras’s main trading partner remains the US, which received 50.3% of exports (US$2.52bn) (including clothing, vehicle wiring harnesses, bananas, coffee and melon) and accounted for 39.5% of Honduras’s imports which include fuel, textiles, machinery, electrical equipment and corn.