Economy & Business - August 2023

On 12 July, the CBC consortium of Chinese firms comprising CATL (the world’s largest manufacturer of lithium-ion batteries for electric vehicles), BRUNP, and CMOC announced that it had begun extraction of lithium in Bolivia, six months after signing an agreement worth US$1bn with state-run company Yacimientos de Litio Bolivianos (YLB) to install two direct lithium extraction (DLE) plants.... Read More

Venezuela has the world’s largest proven oil reserves but constantly has a shortage of fuel at gas stations and money in government coffers.... Read More

Colombia’s aviation industry has gone through its share of upheaval this year, suffering a protracted crisis that eliminated two airlines, left customers with fewer options, and raised questions over the role of the government and flag carrier Avianca in a bungled rescue attempt.... Read More

VENEZUELA | Citgo Auction due in October. On 21 July, a US Judge established a priority ranking of creditors expected to claim a share of funds from the planned auction of PDV Holding, a US-based subsidiary of Venezuela’s state oil company Petróleos de Venezuela (Pdvsa) which owns Citgo, the sixth largest refinery company in the US.... Read More

Following a rocky start to his third term [EB-23-01], Brazil’s President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva has made considerable progress in defusing budgetary timebombs and pushing his legislative reform agenda, thereby improving the outlook for Latin America’s largest economy.... Read More

For decades one government after another has tried to overhaul Brazil’s unwieldy tax system to no avail.... Read More

It isn’t often that Argentine authorities get to announce positive economic news.... Read More

It’s been about a quarter of a century since the European Union (EU) and the South American trade bloc Mercosur first started exploring the possibilities of a trade agreement, but every time it looked like it was a done deal, it wasn’t.... Read More

PARAGUAY | Tourism industry on recovery track.... Read More

Costa Rica received the highest amount of foreign direct investment (FDI) of any country in Central America, with Panama in second place, according to a recently published annual report from the United Nations Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (Eclac).... Read More

On 18 July, Manuel Eduardo Arita took over as Guatemala’s minister of energy & mining (MEM), replacing Alberto Pimentel, who resigned just weeks after the country was forced to declare an energy emergency due to a lack of rain.... Read More

PetroCaribe, the Venezuelan programme that once offered subsidised crude oil supplies to neighbouring countries in the Caribbean, was wildly popular while it lasted, between 2005 and 2019.... Read More

In June, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) concluded an Article IV mission to Dominica highlighting a strong economic recovery but cautioning over the need for tighter fiscal management.... Read More

NICARAGUA | Central bank claims drop in foreign debt.... Read More

On 10 July, Mexico’s President Andrés Manuel López Obrador confirmed that the government had acquired Mexicana de Aviación airline.... Read More

Mexico’s Economy Minister Raquel Buenrostro met with the US Trade Representative Katherine Tai and Canada’s International Trade Minister Mary Ng for the third meeting of the Free Trade Commission (FTC) of the US-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA), which took place on 7 July in Cancún, Quintana Roo state.... Read More

According to a report published by local NGO Mexicanos contra la Corrupción y la Impunidad (MCCI) on 20 July, during the first six months of 2023, seven of every ten federal government procurement contracts were awarded without a public bidding process, even though the law establishes that direct purchases must be used only in exceptional cases while public tenders are defined in the constitution as the norm for government contracts.... Read More

On 21 July, Mexico’s President Andrés Manuel López Obrador said that oil companies that have suffered leaks, explosions or fires will be investigated.... Read More

MEXICO | Remittances continue to rise.... Read More