* Honduras’s President Xiomara Castro has approved the 2024 State budget proposal for L406.58bn (US$16.58bn) which will now be voted upon by the 128-member unicameral legislature in which the leftist ruling Partido Libertad y Refundación lacks a majority. The 2024 budget proposal is up from the L392.52bn budget approved for 2023 which in turn was up 8.9 % on 2022. Finance Minister Rixi Moncada warned however that the country remains burdened by the “onerous debt” inherited from the previous Partido Nacional (PN) government led by former president Juan Orlando Hernández (2014-2022) which she said exceeds US$20bn, and that under the 2024 budget, this year the government would have to find resources to cover a deficit of some L70bn.