Egypt Violence: Could it Happen in Latin America?
February 3rd, 2011As protests in Egypt continue, Latin American bloggers are drawing historical parallels with similar uprisings in the region and some are wondering: “Could it happen here now?”
In The Mex Files, Rich compares Egypt’s situation to Porfirio Diaz’ 30-year rule in Mexico –which fell during the Mexican Revolution– in his post, “Walk like an Egyptian: Porfirio to Mubarak.” Rich concludes his analysis looking at Mexico today: “Mexicans are not — one trusts — as desperate as the Egyptians, or at least not in the numbers seen in Cairo. But, what will happen if the Mexicans decide it is time for a giant leap in Mexican power, in which the people of the largest Spanish-speaking nation demand that they be allowed to fulfill their potential?”
Greg Weeks writes about the similarities and differences between Nicaragua and Egypt from a historical perspective in his …
Off Hours: Nicaragua Tops List of World’s Best Retirement Havens
November 22nd, 2010As we move toward the start of the new year, it’s time to take a look at the world map to identify the world’s top retirement havens for 2011. Depending on the size of your retirement budget, here’s where you should be looking to realize the adventure-filled retirement of your dreams.
Super Affordable
1. Nicaragua — specifically Leon, Granada, and San Juan del Sur. Nicaragua is more attractive than ever for one important reason: It’s a super cheap place to live. I’ve been a fan of this misunderstood country since my first visit nearly 20 years ago. Property values, especially for beachfront property along the Pacific, reached bubble status last decade. Today prices are more realistic and more negotiable. In the meantime, the cost-of-living has remained seriously low. And last year Nicaragua inaugurated a new and improved foreign retiree …
Nicaragua Experiences Strong Recovery in Exports
February 2nd, 2010The Nicaragua export sector began to show good signs this year as foreign sales in January surpassed those in the same month of 2009.
A preliminary report of the Center for Export Procedures (CETREX) indicates that exports last month increased by 33.01 percent in value, from 96.7 million dollars in January 2009 at 128.6 million dollars in January just past.
In January last year the exports by 96.7 million dollars had meant a decrease of 27.75 percent in the value of foreign sales, versus 2008. In volume terms during the first month of this year it had to export a 48.6 percent increase in January last year, from 87.1 million kilograms in 2009 to 129.4 million kg last month.
The executive director of the Center for Export Procedures Jorge Molina told reporters that while there was a recovery in January, “the situation is still unclear. “It’s premature to say he …
From Russia With Love: WiMax Mobile Broadband Comes to Nicaragua
December 15th, 2009Russia’s Yota, the mobile services developer and provider and one of the world’s leaders in Mobile WiMAX (4G) technology, has announced the test run of the mobile broadband 4th-generation Internet access network in Managua, the capital of Nicaragua. The Yota network was rolled out in record time – in three months since the beginning of construction.
During the press conference attended by representatives of WiMAX Forum, Intel and Samsung, the strategic partners of Yota, journalists were told about the project and its perspectives in details.
Ricardo Olarte, Northern Cone General Manager of Intel, said that “the broadband penetration in Latin America is very low, and is the reason why the initiative taken by Nicaragua will allow a significant leap in the adoption of new technologies placing the country at the forefront and generating a positive effect in people and businesses to improve the competitiveness of it.”
In July 2009, the public international tender …
CAFTA Opens the Door to Nicaragua
September 15th, 2009By Ricardo Castillo, NSAM Contributing Editor
Chris Marlett, the CEO of MDB Capital Investment Group, of Santa Monica, California, knew very little about outsourcing in 2007, when he was putting the finishing touches on his dream beach home in the Pacific Ocean of Nicaragua.
PatentVest founder Chris Marlett bought the former US Embassy In Managua and transformed it into a shared services data center site.
The Central American Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA) had just been ratified, and the region was already a dynamic platform for direct access to the United States market. Foreign direct investment flowed into Central America from Europe, Asia, the U.S., and even from South America and Mexico. But Nicaragua’s emerging BPO sector was attracting an increasing number of multinationals seeking to lower operational costs and optimize production performance by outsourcing here instead of India or the Philippines. Nicaragua became a contender among its peers as labor costs in neighboring Costa Rica and El Salvador – until now the region’s main outsourcing hubs – had risen amid a shortage of qualified English-speakers.
