Source: Bloomberg Business Week

Chilean consumer prices rose 0.1 percent in January from December, leaving the annual inflation rate above the target range for a second straight month, the National Statistics Institute said.

Prices climbed 4.2 percent from a year earlier and monthly core inflation, which excludes fuel and produce, was 0.1 percent, the institute said in a report today. The median estimate of 16 analysts was for prices to rise 0.2 percent in the month.

With annual inflation above the central bank’s 2 percent to 4 percent target, policy makers probably will pause before repeating last month’s surprise quarter-point cut in its benchmark interest rate, economist Cristobal Doberti said by phone. Since the Jan. 12 rate reduction, data show unemployment tumbled and economic growth accelerated in December.

“Given the recent economic activity data we’ve seen locally and abroad together with the increase in salaries, we expect the bank to hold the rate in the next meeting,” Doberti, an economist at Bice Inversiones in Santiago, said today. Rate cuts won’t come until “the economy shows more signs of contagion from abroad than what we’re seeing now.”

The central bank will leave its key interest rate unchanged at 5 percent this month, according to the median forecast of 56 traders and investors surveyed by the bank on Feb. 7. The bank will reduce the rate to 4.75 percent in May and 4.5 percent in August, according to the survey published today.

Transport vs Electricity

Transportation costs climbed 1 percent in January, led by a 2.1 percent gain in motor fuel. The cost of electricity fell 5.1 percent over the same period as new price fixings came into force, the statistics institute said.

The cost of beef, which was one of the drivers of faster- than-forecast price increases in December, fell 2.3 percent as supermarkets found new suppliers. An outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease in Paraguay, which provides 63 percent of Chile’s beef, had restricted supply in previous months.

The current drought in Chile won’t drive up prices of produce or electricity, the ministers of agriculture and public works, Luis Mayol and Laurence Golborne, said today.

“Fruit exporters will be selling more to the domestic market” as they divert sub-standard produce from exports, Mayol told reporters in Santiago. “If anything, it will lead to a drop in prices.”

Rate Swaps

Chile’s one-year interest rate swap, which reflects traders’ views of average borrowing costs, rose 1 basis point, or 0.01 percentage point, to 4.74 percent at 11:54 a.m. in Santiago from yesterday. The swaps market may not react to the slower-than-forecast price increases, according to Alex Pigatto, a trader at Nomura Securities Inc. in New York.

“The figure itself will not be enough to bring relief in the interest-rate swaps and breakeven curve,” he wrote in a note to clients.

Policy makers last month reduced their benchmark interest rate for the first time in more than two years. Only four of 20 analysts surveyed by Bloomberg had forecast the quarter-point reduction to 5 percent.

Since then, economic reports show that unemployment fell to 6.6 percent in the last three months of 2011 from 7.1 percent the month earlier, while the economy expanded 1.3 percent in December from November, the fastest pace in 17 months. Wages rose 1.2 percent in December from the previous month.

The Chilean peso strengthened 0.3 percent to 477.05 per U.S. dollar at 12:25 p.m. in Santiago. The median forecast of 57 traders and investors in the survey was that the peso would reach 480 in seven days and 485 per dollar in three months.

Source: Herald Tribune

Brazilians tired of answering their boss’s after-hours emails may be able to charge overtime based on a law businesses see hurting competitiveness in Latin America’s largest economy.

Using portable communications devices is equivalent to working in the office, according to legislation signed by President Dilma Rousseff last month.

The law is one more obstacle companies say they face in Brazil, where regulations mandating everything from employer- provided breakfasts to union contributions are a daily drag on efficiency bemoaned for decades as the “Custo Brasil,” or Brazil Cost.

It takes less time to set up a business in Nigeria or Mongolia than it does Brazil, according to the World Bank, which ranked it No. 126 out of 183 countries in its 2012 competitiveness study.

“It’s very worrying,” Emerson Casali, head of labor relations at the National Industry Confederation, said in a phone interview from Brasilia. “If enforced, it could have an enormous impact, a large loss of productivity.”

The law coincides with a growing concern in countries ranging from the U.S. to Germany over how to set boundaries between work and leisure in an era of virtual offices and the need for 24/7 communication. Among the companies taking steps to spare workers after-hours e-mails is Volkswagen.

The law has elicited concern because Brazilian law and judges tend to favor employees in disputes related to overtime pay, said Bruno Checchia, a Brasilia-based labor attorney for Pinheiro Neto Advogados. Already the country’s top labor court has agreed to study the law and decide how to enforce it. The Superior Labor Tribunal said it will also consider whether being on call with a mobile device in hand is considered work and subject to compensation.

“The law says working remotely is like clocking in,” Joao Oreste Dalazen, head of the court, said in a statement.

Employers are bracing for trouble. Checchia said he has fielded several calls from clients worried the law could drive their personnel costs up. That would compound the woes of Brazilian manufacturers already struggling with a strong local currency and declining global demand.

While it is too early to know if the law will have any impact on share prices, it “creates uncertainty and could impact business activity,” Joao Mauricio Rosal, chief economist with Raymond James Brasil, said by phone from Sao Paulo.

Employers could try to offset increased overtime pay by freezing or reducing salary increases, Rosal added.

Unions say the law is essential to prevent work from further encroaching on personal time.

“With the advance of technology it’s become a necessity,” Manoel Melo, secretary for labor relations at Central Unica dos Trabalhadores, the nation’s largest union confederation, said by phone from Recife. “This issue is being discussed the world over and Brazil has taken the forefront.”

A survey by Washington-based Wakefield Research for Motorola Mobility Holdings last year showed almost half of Americans say they’ve been woken at night by a call, text message or email from work.

In the United States, where managers and professionals often aren’t paid for overtime, a growing number of companies are reviewing their policies on the use of smart phones, said Eric Pelton, a partner at Kienbaum, Opperwall, Hardy and Pelton.

“There’s a lot of talk right now on how to deal with this issue,” Pelton said by phone from Birmingham, Mich. “If managers handle it smartly, they’ll avoid lawsuits.”

Companies such as Verizon Communications Inc, T-Mobile USA Inc. and Stanley Black & Decker Inc. have already been sued for unpaid overtime related to smart phone use.

“This is likely only the beginning,” Spencer Silverglate, a lawyer at Clarke Silverglate in Miami, said in a telephone interview.

Source: Bloomberg

Colombia’s peso fell for the first time in a week after the central bank said it will resume dollar purchases in a bid to ease a rally in the local currency and shore up exports.

Banco de la Republica will buy a minimum of $20 million a day in auctions for at least three months starting today in a bid to boost international reserves, according to a statement issued Feb. 3 after markets closed. The peso fell 0.2 percent to 1,787.30 per dollar from 1,784.50 on Feb. 3.

The peso has advanced 8.5 percent this year and touched a five-month high on Feb. 3 as central bankers raised thebenchmark interest rate, luring investment to the country’s fixed-income market, to cool growth and keep inflation in check. While the three-month dollar buying program may slow the peso’s gains, it’s unlikely to reverse the currency’s rally, said Juan Nicolas Garcia, a currency trader at HSBC Holdings Plc’s Colombia unit.

“The central bank’s pain threshold seems to be around 1,780,” Garcia said. The peso may weaken toward 1,800 per dollar before reversing course because “increased appetite for risk, the carry trade and Colombia’s solid growth” will fuel demand for pesos, he said.

The carry trade refers to the practice in which investors borrow funds in a country with lower borrowing costs and buy assets where interest rates are higher. Colombia’s benchmark rate is 5 percent, compared with near zero in the U.S.

Regional Efforts

Policy makers in Latin America are stepping up efforts to curb currency gains. Brazil’s central bank bought dollars in the currency forwards market on Feb. 3 for the first time since July to stem an 8.3 percent rally in the real this year.

While developing nations from Brazil to the Philippineshave been cutting borrowing costs to shore up growth amidEurope’s debt crisis, the Colombian central bank has raised rates to prevent the economy from overheating. Colombia’s gross domestic product grew 7.7 percent in the third quarter, the fastest since 2006.

“The pace of appreciation had been picking up and the central bankers were obviously ready to do something about it when that happened,” said Daniel Lozano, an analyst at Serfinco brokerage in Bogota.

Banco de la Republica said in a statement today that it’s scrapping its plan to auction dollar options whenever the peso’s 20-day moving average changes by more than 4 percent.

Unsustainable

Policy makers may buy more than $20 million daily or adopt additional currency measures should the peso strengthen beyond 1,770 per dollar, HSBC’s Garcia predicts.

Central bank President Jose Dario Uribe said in a Feb. 5 interview with newspaper El Tiempo that without recent increases in the nation’s benchmark rate, the pace of economic growth would be unsustainable.

Agriculture Minister Juan Camilo Restrepo said Jan. 31 that the rate increase will attract more foreign portfolio investment to Colombia, fueling currency gains and hurting farm exports. He called for dollar purchases to offset the trend, a sentiment echoed by flower and banana exporters.

Luis Carlos Villegas, the head of Colombia’s biggest business association, known as ANDI, criticized the central bank as being “excessively prudent” by raising rates.

Policy makers said in a statement following the rate increase that bank lending is growing, housing prices are at record highs and investors’ inflation expectations have risen.

Foreign Investment

The peso is also being buoyed by foreign direct investment in crude, mining and energy projects. Mining Minister Mauricio Cardenas said Jan. 26 that Colombia will receive about $10 billion in foreign direct investment in these industries this year, similar to 2011 levels.

The central bank ended a yearlong daily dollar purchase program on Sept. 30 after Europe’s debt crisis led investors to dump emerging market assets. No dollar options to control volatility were auctioned since Banco de la Republica announced Oct. 28 it would sell them.

The yield on the government’s 10 percent peso bonds due July 2024 rose one basis point, or 0.01 percentage point, to 7.37 percent, according to the central bank. The bond’s price fell 0.145 centavo to 120.847 centavos per peso.

Earlier today the yield fell to 7.35 percent after a Feb. 4 government report showed annual inflation slowed to 3.54 percent in January from 3.73 percent the previous month. Policy makers target inflation between 2 percent and 4 percent this year.

The central bank will probably keep raising interest rates to keep inflation in check, Barclays Capital Inc. Latin America analysts Alejandro Arreaza and Alejandro Grisanti wrote in a report today.

“Despite this benign inflation print, we still expect Banrep to continue with its monetary tightening,” Arreaza and Grisanti wrote. “We expect inflation to accelerate in coming months, driven by higher food prices and the demand pressures that are likely to start to push up core inflation.”

Source: Business Week

Billionaire Carlos Slim was out of context and off the mark in his criticism of a study finding a lack of competition in Mexico’s phone industry, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development said.

Slim told reporters yesterday that the group’s report, released earlier this week, seemed to use data “pulled out of thin air.” The 72-year-old, who controls Mexico’s largest wireless and landline-phone companies, denied the study’s claims that Mexican carriers overcharged consumers $13.4 billion a year for phone and Internet services from 2005 to 2009.

Mexico’s government, which commissioned the study, is using it to validate efforts to create more competition in telecommunications. The findings support the government’s plan to auction off fiber-optic lines owned by the state power company and contracts to push high-speed Internet into communities where it’s not available, Communications and Transportation Minister Dionisio Perez-Jacome said this week.

“The OECD stands by its report in full,” the group said today in an e-mailed statement.

In addition to $13.4 billion a year in overcharges, the study concluded that Mexican phone companies missed out on $12.4 billion in sales a year because their prices weren’t low enough. Adding up those figures, the OECD said Mexico’s phone market had an “opportunity cost” of $25.8 billion a year.

Purchasing Power Parity

Slim dismissed that $25.8 billion figure, saying that the OECD was implying that the industry, which generates sales of $30 billion a year, should give up most of its revenue.

Instead, the OECD said, its report showed that if companies had offered lower prices, the decrease in sales would have been almost completely offset by an increase in new subscriptions.

Slim also criticized the use of a method called “purchasing power parity” used by the OECD to compare prices in different countries. He gave reporters copies of a separate OECD document that said the method wasn’t appropriate “to undertake price level comparisons at low levels of aggregation.”

The statisticians that developed the method endorse the way the OECD used it in the Mexico study, the group said today. Using simple price comparisons based on foreign exchange, the method Slim endorsed to show that Mexico’s prices are lower than in most other OECD member countries, is too vulnerable to currency swings, the OECD said.

Lower Broadband Adoption

Slim also took issue with the OECD’s conclusion that Mexico’s rate of broadband adoption, at 10.5 high-speed Internet subscribers per 100 habitants in 2010, was near the bottom of the rankings of its 34 member countries. It would have been more fair to divide those rates by the per-capita gross domestic product of each country, a measure which would make Mexico compare much more favorably, Slim said.

The report took GDP into account in its calculations of how lower prices would affect subscriptions, the OECD said today.

The OECD met with Slim’s America Movil SAB and with other carriers last year, the group said. Representatives of all 34 member countries reviewed the study in an October 2011 meeting in which America Movil had a representative present, the OECD said. Afterward, America Movil submitted comments on the study that were “given serious consideration” as the report was being finished, the OECD said.

An official at America Movil’s Telefonos de Mexico SAB fixed-line unit didn’t have an immediate comment today.

Jamaica’s growing reputation as a top Caribbean destination for investment in Information and Communication Technology (ICT) and other key growth sectors is set to take centre stage on March 1-2, 2012, as the island lays out the red carpet for investors seeking opportunities in the region’s largest English-speaking economy.

The Jamaica Investment Forum 2012, which will be staged at the new Montego Bay Convention Centre, will focus on the business opportunities that exist in ICT, as well as other priority areas such as Tourism, Manufacturing and major privatization and development projects.

The Prime Minister of Jamaica, the Most Hon. Portia Simpson Miller, will head a high profile slate of local and international speakers at the Forum, which is being organized by JAMPRO, the country’s investment promotion agency, in partnership with the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) and the Compete Caribbean Programme. The opening of the event will feature presentations from Anthony Hylton, the Minister of Industry, Investment and Commerce, and a high-level representative from the IDB.

The sectoral session on ICT will focus on opportunities in Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) and IT Export Services (ITES) and will feature a mix of information and testimonials from expert panellists and existing investors. Among the confirmed speakers for this session are Connie Harvey, EVP, COO, Commercial Solutions, ACS, A Xerox Company; Dr. Harsh Muthal, CEO Tholons Inc.; Ambassador Patrick Casserly, Special Envoy for ICT; and Helena Lawson Brooks, SVP- Specialty Operations, Convergys Corporation. Phillip Vandervoort, Head of Business and Marketing Operations, Microsoft, is scheduled to deliver a presentation during the investment climate plenary.

Participants will have the opportunity to see first-hand some of the select investment projects on specially arranged JAMPRO site visits and private meetings. Prime Minister Simpson Miller will also host a welcome reception at which participants will be able to meet members of the Jamaican Government and senior leaders in the private and public sectors. A special “Jamaica Night” reception will cap off a comprehensive social programme that will offer participants, diverse opportunities for leisure, tours and sightseeing.

Jamaica is home to four of the world’s top 10 outsourcing companies, and currently has over 11,000 full-time agents in the offshore business process outsourcing (BPO) sector. With nearshore access to the United States, a neutral English accent, low attrition rates and high labour force availability among secondary and university graduates, Jamaica continues to offer a very strong value proposition for BPO investors.

Most recently, Jamaica landed a major investment from Convergys Corporation, one of the largest agent-assisted customer service companies in the world. The company is projected to employ nearly 1,000 persons when its first call centre slated for Montego Bay becomes fully staffed in 2012.

The Jamaica Investment Forum will provide potential investors with insightful information pertaining to the Government of Jamaica’s investment policies and incentive regimes; and networking opportunities among existing investors and leaders in the local business community. The Forum has received strong backing from the local business community. Among the many local sponsors are: FLOW/Columbus Communications, LIME, Digicel, Jamaica Public Service Company, and the Bank of Nova Scotia.

Source: MercoPress

President Cristina Fernandez has more power than Juan Domingo Peron “ever had” and Peronism in Argentina is guarantee of governance, according to Carlos Corach a former Interior minister from the former President Carlos Menem administration and a respected solicitor and political analyst.

“Cristina Fernandez is probably the president which has enjoyed more power in the history of Argentina. I’d say even more, she has more power than what Peron had. Peron had to deal and negotiate with very strong corporations, and economic and political sectors”, said the former minister.

Corach added that Peron (the Army Colonel who was president from 1946/1952, re-elected in 1952 but ousted by a military coup in 1955, to return triumphantly in 1973) had to learn to live with the Armed Forces, a very powerful Catholic Church and an opposition that also had strong and charismatic leaders”.

“Currently the majority of those players don’t hold such positions. So the conclusion then is that CFK is the most powerful (elected) president in Argentine history”. However “a democratic and political system need of counter balances for a political equilibrium and that today is non existent”.

Corach admitted that the evolution of policy in recent years has led to this situation and recalled a famous Peronism party congress back in 2001, which he identified as “the beginning of the very strong institutional deterioration process” suffered by Argentina.

Asked specifically about Kirchnerism and its quest for power concentration, Corach said that political science shows “that power leads to the concentration of power” and admitted that Peronism “has in its DNA a strong tendency to concentrate power”.

“All of us Peronists have committed mistakes, in the government of Peron, in Menem’s and under the current administration. We all committed mistakes but nevertheless the Argentine electorate continues to vote for Peronism and this is because it has internally engraved that Peronism is the guarantee for governance” in Argentina.

Likewise Corach said that there are “great similarities” between Menemism and Kirchnerism, and Carlos Menem and Nestor Kirchner “had much in common”.

“They both implemented socio-economic plans that were prevalent in the economic thinking at the global stage of their time. Likewise and I said so on leaving office in 1999, ‘Menemism’ does not exist because they are political currents which nurture on the charismatic personality of a leader or the political boss at the time. What remains is the essence of Peronism and it’s very close link with the trade unions’ movement”, added Corach.

Finally he recalled that when former president Nestor Kirchner was governor of the province of Santa Cruz “we had regular and standing contacts, he would come regularly to my office, many times with (Federal Planning Minister Julio) De Vido, and I have travelled many times to the province and Rio Gallegos. We shared lunch quite often at the Governor’s residence, with his wife and my wife”.

Source: CNN

The rise of Brazil as an economic force has brought with it a policy challenge familiar here in the United States: immigration.

Recently crowned the world’s sixth-largest economy, Brazil has become an immigration magnet, both to low-skilled workers –some of whom enter illegally — and high-skilled workers looking for opportunities in the country’s thriving sectors.

Brazil historically has been welcoming to immigrants, but the challenge now is more pronounced as the government seeks to accept foreigners while protecting its hard-won prosperity.

The country faces two simultaneous challenges: how to deal with recent illegal immigration, mostly from Haiti, and how to make it easier for highly educated immigrants to get work permits. A number of Brazilian ministries have either proposed or are deliberating policies as the country ushers in a new era of immigration.

“You cannot become the sixth economy in the world with impunity,” Defense Minister Celso Amorim, a former foreign minister, said recently.

Before, people left Brazil to chase a better life, he said. Now, the tide has turned.

“Naturally, we have to study how to act during this new situation. It’s not just Haitians, but Brazilians who are returning. We have to try to exercise the same humanitarian spirit that’s present in Haiti (where Brazil leads a U.N. mission), and in a manner that compatible with our means,” Amorim said.

In 2011 through September, Brazil processed 52,353 work permits to immigrants, a 32.8% increase over 2010.

Brazil’s needs and wants have created the situation where there are ideas to limit the entry of some immigrants and entice the entry of others.

In recent decades in Brazil, the education levels of the population have increased significantly, said Ernesto Amaral, a demographer and professor at the Federal University of Minas Gerais, Brazil.

In that period, an increase in the number of educated workers meant more competition for jobs and a negative impact on wages, he said.

“But this negative impact is decreasing because we have the demand for skilled labor in Brazil,” he said.

In other words, Brazil’s boom has created an environment where the demand for high-skilled jobs is now outpacing the growth of Brazil’s educated workforce.

To meet this challenge, Brazil will have to ramp up its education efforts even more.

“Immigration is important in the short run. We need these workers in Brazil right now,” he said.

At the same time, an opposite effect is happening for low-skilled work, Amaral said.

The percentage of low-educated Brazilians is decreasing, but the demand for low-skilled labor is decreasing faster, he said.

Amaral summed up the way that Brazilians, usually welcoming to immigrants, see this development: “We want to help these low-skilled people, but there is a limit.”

Facing with illegal immigration from Haiti, Brazil’s National Council on Immigration agreed this month to provide 1,200 work visas per year to Haitians affected by the 2010 earthquake who emigrate to Brazil.

The work permits will be good for five years, a period during which the immigrants will find jobs and apply for extensions, or will return home. Unlike other work visas in Brazil, applicants need not have a job contract in hand when they arrive.

Under the plan, those immigrants already in the country who entered illegally will be “regularized.”

Unlike the United States, where illegal entry by low-skilled workers is often viewed as a threat, Brazilians are extolling the positives such newly-legalized immigrants can bring.

“For example, the Haitians speak French and could be useful in the cities where the World Cup games will be held,” Labor Minister Paulo Roberto dos Santos Pinto said.

The country’s justice secretary, Paulo Abrao, is another immigration cheerleader.

“Brazil can be an example to the world of an immigration policy that is open and democratic that reflects our historical welcoming tradition,” he said on Twitter this week.

He continued: “Immigrants add cultural value to Brazil and collaborate in the development of the nation.”

In addition to providing visas for the Haitians, the health department offered 1.3 million reais (U.S. $745,000) for healthcare for them.

But pleasantries aside, Brazil has an economy to protect, and the work visas might signify a closing of a door rather than an opening.

“The attempt to grant visas is an attempt to limit and control the number that come, rather than being generous and open,” said Albert Fishlow, professor emeritus at Columbia University and the author of “Starting Over: Brazil Since 1985.”

The approach toward immigration by Brazil and the United States isn’t that different after all, he said.

“Both countries want to benefit from advances in technology and both countries want to attract people who are relatively skilled and have an opportunity to contribute to that,” Fishlow said.

As for low-skilled immigration, there are other forces raising opposition to their entry.

The Haitian immigrants are arriving mostly to the western states of Amazonas and Acre, in the heart of the Amazon rain forest. A debate of great importance in Brazil currently is how to protect the Amazon. This is the larger issue behind the immigration debate, Fishlow said: will the Amazon be less protected with an influx of newcomers?

Meanwhile, the country’s Secretary of Strategic Affairs has created a team that will propose a new national immigration policy wit emphasis on high-skilled workers.

One reported proposal would create two “lines” for foreigners applying for work visas in Brazil. One for highly-educated applicants, and one for everyone else.

The coordinator for the project, Ricardo Paes de Barros, declined to speak to CNN about the commission’s deliberations.

Source: MarketWatch

Financial market analysts and economists reduced their forecasts for Brazil’s inflation this year for the ninth consecutive week, a survey by the Central Bank of Brazil showed Monday.

Economists now expect the country’s inflation to average 5.28% this year, down slightly from a forecast of 5.29% a week earlier, according to the survey. The forecast is still above the central bank’s inflation target of 4.5% for the year.

Brazil’s inflation rate reached 6.50% last year, the highest since hitting 7.6% in 2004.

For 2013, respondents kept their inflation forecast at 5%.

The central bank’s weekly survey tracks the opinions of 100 analysts and economists and reports the average of their expectations.

The forecast for the central bank’s benchmark Selic interest rate at the end of 2012 remained at 9.50%, while the forecast for end-2013 was raised to 10.38% from 10.25%.

Respondents kept their estimate for Brazil’s 2012 gross domestic product growth at 3.27%. For 2013, they lowered their view to 4.15% from 4.25%.

The average expectation for Brazil’s debt-to-GDP ratio at the end of this year was reduced to 36.95% from 37%.

The forecast for this year’s trade surplus increased to $19.80 billion, from $19.60 billion. Analysts expect Brazil to post a current-account deficit of $65.90 billion at the end of this year.

Brazil’s currency, the real, is expected to end this year at BRL1.80 to the dollar, according to the survey.

Source: The Jamaica Observer

Although mandated studies have found an estimated overall 64 per cent level of “compliance” in the Caricom Single Market and Economy (CSME), the harsh reality is that it is yet to be “fully embraced” by a number of member states.

That, basically, is the assessment of findings in reports submitted to the Georgetown- based Caricom Secretariat with free intra-regional movement of services and the right of establishment identified as the two areas of “major deficiencies” among the five “core regimes” of the CSME.

Additionally, there continues to be disappointment and discomfort with respect to the pace of progress in addressing the old problem of free movement of Caricom nationals with particular concern in relation to advancing the process of free movement of skilled nationals of the 15-member community.

The five “core regimes” of the CSME — the often claimed “flagship project” of Caricom which will mark its 39th year of existence with this coming July’s annual Heads of Government Summit — are the free movement of skills, goods, services and capital, and the right of establishment of businesses to freely operate in member states across the community.

While, at first glance, the approximate 64 per cent “compliance” may bring comfort to some, the real concern for all governments and business sectors anxious for the realisation of substantial progress of the CSME should be an effective process of combined monitoring by them to ensure required compliance.

This does not have to be done publicly — unless really necessary — but quietly with set timeframes with a view to, hopefully, avoid more of the same ad nauseam post-mortem why the CSME seems stuck in the mud while our ears continue to be filled with official rhetoric of our regional “survival together” — against the odds — or “perishing collectively”.

Much criticism is often levelled — and not without relevance — about the foot-dragging politics by governments in steering a committed course in advancing the arrangements for realisation of a seamless regional economy via the CSME.

The reality, however, is that too often the regional private sector, and in particular the so-called “captains of industry” and “enlightened entrepreneurs” escape blame when such blame should be shared.

Caribbean Business Council

A good example, outside of the real and perceived “deficiencies” in the “compliance” level with respect to the CSME could well be the failure by governments and the private sector to make a reality of the long mooted and recognised need for the creation of a Caribbean Business Council (CBC).

Such a mechanism was once vigorously advocated by once very articulate and visionary spokesmen on behalf of the region’s private sector — such as Jamaica’s James Moss-Solomon and Guyana’s Pat Thompson. I have covered regional Heads of Government and ministerial meetings where leaders of governments and the region’s private sector spoke eloquently in favour of establishment of the CBC.

But sadly, while by October 25 last year we were learning of the coming establishment of a Latin America and Caribbean Business Council as an initiative of the Group of Latin American and Caribbean Countries (GRULAC) — an announcement that came via Kuwait — there is yet to be some concrete evidence of regional initiatives within Caricom for the inauguration of the long promised Caribbean Business Council.

Truth is, more than the apparent need for hastening the process for inauguration of the CBC to strengthen government/business partnership for regional development, and consistent with the primary objectives of the CSME, there seems to be an urgent need for a permanent monitoring mechanism on “compliance” with provisions of the Revised Caricom Treaty on which the CSME is anchored.

But it is felt that such a process, which could be done with minor staff adjustments within the Caricom Secretariat, should be approved — perhaps at the coming first Inter-Sessional Meeting of community leaders in Suriname — but should be linked to a sanction requirement on defaults.

Other wider perspectives on the future of Caricom, and specifically realisation of the CSME, include suggestions for new invigorated approaches to deepen intra-regional investment and trade to include Cuba, the Dominican Republic and Central American states such as Costa Rica.

Further, that public-private sector partnerships could be pursued within the scope of a new arrangement for a special window being opened with the Caribbean Development Bank (CDB) and the Eastern Caribbean Central Bank (ECCB) for the blending of grants and concessionary loans along with excessive liquidity available in some countries.

The sectors to be targeted, according to such advocates who are regularly monitoring regional developments, can include maritime transport, food security with increased production of staples like root crops and rice, as well as small livestock (for sheep and goat meat) and tropical agricultural products and cultural services geared for the tourism industry.

Source: The Next Web

Telefonica‘s startup accelerator Wayra and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) signed a global partnership, the two entities announced. The agreement was signed during the launch of Mexico’s Wayra Academy.

As we reported, Wayra is an initiative promoted by Telefonica Digital to foster entrepreneurship and innovation in the ICT sector. Wayra works as a startup accelerator, selecting ten projects in each country in which it operates, which then receive mentoring and other resources at one of the newly opened Wayra spaces.

Initially launched in seven Latin American countries (Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Mexico, Peru and Venezuela), Wayra is now expanding to Europe, starting with the imminent launch of a Wayra Academy in Madrid.

Following Wayra’s agreement with MIT, the two entities will collaborate on a series of initiatives in Latin America. Wayra academies in Mexico, Colombia, Peru, Venezuela and Argentina are the first to join the partnership, which in 2012 will be extended to Chile and Brazil. Going forward, the upcoming academies in Europe may be added to the agreement, Telefonica said.

The main result of this partnership is called “Wayra Entrepreneurship Lab at MIT” (Wayra@MIT). Thanks to this joint venture, Wayra’s accelerated startups will get access to MIT’s training and mentoring ecosystem.

However, acceleration is only one side of the project. Says Wayra’s global manager Gonzalo Martín-Villa:

“We want this partnership to last and we want to explore ways of creating and promoting a quality entrepreneurial ecosystem in Latin America, where there is a wealth of talent, and generating wealth in the home countries.”

According to its website, “Wayra@MIT’s core activities within the Institute consist of an action-learning seminar at the Engineering Systems Division, a series of joint-events both in Latin America and the US, and resources that enable MIT students to learn about the challenges of new enterprise creation in emerging markets while ensuring that their engagement provides substantial value to Wayra portfolio companies.”

This is not the first time MIT has been developing initiatives in Latin America. As we reported, its Technology Review has recently launched a competition in Mexico. A local edition of MIT’s global TR35 awards, it will identify ten Mexican innovators under 35. With this new partnership, the institution is expanding its reach across the region:

“This agreement expands MIT’s technological innovation and entrepreneurial mission to Latin America alongside a partner that has proved its commitment to the region’s development,” said MIT’s Jhonatan Rotberg, responsible for overseeing the initiative.

As a matter of fact, the MIT’s partnership with Wayra is led by MIT NextLab, which focuses on how information and communication technologies can improve the lives of people in emerging countries. One thing is for sure: bringing expert knowledge to a growing accelerator like Wayra is a good start.