From the title of the book, I expected something like Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s “The General in his Labyrinth” in which Bolívar's life is brought out through the narrative of his memories. No.. the memory in Moya’s novel is that of Haydée Aragon, a simple and plain housewife who has no political, literary or intellectual interests. She is just another victim of  the tyrannical rule of a military dictator of El Salvador. She starts recording her memory as a diary just to pass time and make use of the beautiful notebook she had bought in Brussels. Haydée spends her time most ..read more

From January 2020 I am discontinuing this blog which I had started in 2005. I  add my writing on Latin American markets and India-Latin America business in my other blog http://latinamericanaffairs.blogspot.com ..read more

Latin America’s GDP is projected to grow by 0.2% in 2019 and improve to 1.8% in 2020, according to an IMF report of October. The ten South American countries will together suffer a GDP contraction of 0.2 this year but will resume growth of 1.8% next year. Central America’s growth rate will increase to 3.4 % in 2020 from 2.7% in 2019. The changes projected in GDP growth of the major markets of Latin America from 2019 to 2020 are: Brazil’s growth rate will increase from 0.9% this year to 2% next year. Mexico 0.4% to 1.3 % Argentina from negative 3.1 to negative 1.3 percent Colombi ..read more

Lithium has emerged as important  for major countries and companies since it is one of the key inputs for the manufacture of lithium-ion batteries, which store the energy that powers mass-market electronic devices (such as telephones, tablets, laptop computers, wireless tools), automobiles and other electric vehicles, as well as electric power grids (when connected to wind turbines and photovoltaic cells). Demand for lithium is expected to  triple between 2017 and 2025.  The government of India, which also has a Lithium strategy, should take note of the ongoing foreign investment in the ..read more

 Latin American GDP is forecast to grow by a modest 0.5% in 2019, according to a report released by UN ECLAC this week. The decrease in growth is due to domestic reasons such as lesser investment, reduction in exports, fall in public spending and private consumption.  Growth was also affected by the global environment of fall in commodity prices, slow down by China which has reduced imports and trade wars unleashed by President trump. Latin America started this decade with the highest growth rate of 6.2% in 2010. It came down since then and even went into negative 0.2% in 2015 and 1% in ..read more

Ecuador has started the process to become member of Pacific Alliance in the first week of July 2019. This was confirmed and welcomed at the summit of the Alliance held on 7 July. It is geographically logical given the fact that Ecuador is tucked in between Colombia and Peru, the only neighbours of the country. Since UNASUR and Andean Community (of which Ecuador was a member) are dead, Ecuador needs to join a Group and Pacific Alliance is a natural choice. In any case, Ecuador has already signed FTA with Colombia, Peru and Chile.. It will soon sign one with Mexico. While all the four members ..read more

Mercosur and European Union reached a political agreement for a Free Trade Agreement (FTA) on 28 June. The new trade agreement is part of a wider Association Agreement between the two sides. This is a surprising but positive news.   Surprise, because of three things. First, the negotiations have been going on since 2000 slowly and indifferently and almost forgotten for many years. Even I did not anticipate its conclusion now. Secondly, both Mercosur and EU are in a stage of internal crisis at this time and one did not expect them to focus on conclusion of the deal, which is complicate ..read more

India exported more to the distant (15000 km) Guatemala ( 305 million dollars) than to the neighbouring (3400 km) Cambodia ( 196 million$)in 2018-19,. India’s export of 181 million dollars to the remote and small Uruguay  (15000 km away; population 3.4 million) is more than to Kazhakstan ( 143 milliondollars) which is 1600 km from Delhi and has more than five times population with 18 million. India exported more (216 m $) to Dominican Republic (DR) than to the near by Uzbekistan ( 201 m) which has double the population of DR. India’s exports to Central America ( 968 million dollars ..read more

Latin America accounts for 1.6 billion dollars (34% ) of the total global revenue of 4.7 bn of UPL. The region’s share is more than that of Europe, US or Asia. UPL, the largest Indian agrochemical firm, has more business in Brazil (1.2 billion dollars) than in India. Brazil's share is 25% of the global business of UPL.                                                 Rajju Shroff, founder and chairman of UPL UPL has manufacturing units in Brazil, Argentina and Colombia. It has a large Research and Development Centre for seeds in Argentina. UPL is now the top Indian private sector inves ..read more

India’s exports to Latin America in 2018 (January-December) increased by10.9% to 12.9 billion dollars in 2018. This is higher than the 9.1% increase in India’s global exports. The increase in export to Latin America is creditable in view of the following two unfavourable developments: The regions’ imports in 2018 had gone down by 10.2% to 894 billion dollars from 996 bn in 2017 and: the regional GDP growth rate was just marginal at 1.1% last year.  India had exported more to Mexico than to neighbours such as Iran (2.85 bn), Myanmar (1.2bn) or traditional partners such as Canada ( 2.39 bn ..read more