Search Results for: El Salvador

But even though the Lava Jato task force was officially disbanded in 2021, Pierpaolo Bottini, partner at São Paulo-based Bottini & Tamasauskas Advogados, and a former director of the Economic Criminal Law of the Brazilian Institute of Criminal Sciences, said this abuse of crypto has been highlighted in cases he is defending. …

The executive director of the Chamber of the Textile and Apparel Industry, of El Salvador (CAMTEX – Cámara de la Industria Textil) has told Just Style how her manufacturing hub is seizing market opportunities growing as Covid-19 ebbs.

Patricia Figueroa, who has been in her job since 2015, also highlighted the challenges the Salvadoran clothing and textile industry will tackle in 2021-22, with CAMTEX’s help.…

Accountants are grappling with the implications of El Salvador formally adopting Bitcoin (BTC) as legal tender on September 7, alongside USD, which has been the country’s legal tender since 2001, when the country withdrew its national Colón currency.

While USD will remain the most important currency in El Salvador, remaining the reference currency for accounting purposes, with greenback banknotes and coins still circulating, the Bitcoin Law that established the cryptocurrency in El Salvador (1) will be a challenge and opportunity for businesses.…

The relationship between the USA textile industry and its counterparts in Latin America has never been straightforward, given the US exports fabrics and fibre to its neighbours as well as importing apparel, but the Covid-19 pandemic has increased complexity in this relationship.…

After a Covid-disrupted 2020, the clothing manufacturing industry in El Salvador is now recovering fast, with sales pushed increasing demand in its key United States export market. Sales to the USA gathered USD1.5 billion in the first semester of 2021, USD664 million more than the same period in the previous year (+74.8%), according to data from El Salvador’s central bank (Banco Central de Reserva de El Salvador).…

After a Covid-disrupted 2020, the clothing manufacturing industry in El Salvador is now recovering fast, with sales pushed increasing demand in its key United States export market. Sales to the USA gathered USD1.5 billion in the first semester of 2021, USD664 million more than the same period in the previous year (+74.8%), according to data from El Salvador’s central bank (Banco Central de Reserva de El Salvador).…

After completing the technical testing required, central America’s largest apparel factory is about to open in Honduras, producing sportswear for major brands such as Nike or Under Armour, an executive informed just-style.
La Arena, the Tegra Global-owned industrial park in San Pedro Sula, in the country’s north, will receive around 100 employees during the last week of August – its inauguration was delayed from January because of the Covid-19 pandemic.…

The Islamic insurgency experienced in Cabo Delgado, Mozambique’s northernmost province, since 2017, which has already displaced more than 250,000 people and killed more than 1,500, is damaging operations within the region’s higher education institutions.

While confirmed casualties have yet to include academics and students at the region’s higher education institutions, local higher education leaders are concerned about the risks.…

The textile industry in Guatemala represents 8.9% of the country’s gross domestic product (GDP), but a rise in production costs is jeopardising the industry’s overseas sales competitiveness. Therefore, Guatemala producers are focusing on buying and installing cutting edge technology to improve existing operations and even create new business divisions, maintaining their competitiveness against other suppliers in the region, Alejandro Ceballos, president of the country’s Apparel & Textile Industry Association (Vestex).…

Tegra, the Atlanta, USA-based leading apparel manufacturing and supply chain provider, is expanding its workforce in Latin America, with new job posts in El Salvador’s compound as well as its soon to be opened facility in Honduras. Tegra’s plant in El Salvador, Decotex, was expanded to nearly 250,000 square feet in August (2019).…

THE DIGITAL textile printing industry and market in Colombia is growing at steadfast pace, with local demand propelled by boutique fashion brands and publicity. However, the increased costs and upfront investment involved in creating digital printing means that traditional finishing techniques are still common in this South American manufacturing hub.…

IT has been another subdued year for the beauty and personal care product market in Latin America, as the region’s economy underperforms yet again after six years of deceleration (and in some countries outright recession), keeping a lid on sales growth. …

THE INTERNATIONAL Organization for Standardization (ISO) has launched a series of standards designed to help the cocoa industry ensure its products are both sustainably harvested and processed, but also traceable across their supply chains. Its ISO 34101 series is designed to promote good environmental and labour practices in a sector that involves sophisticated confectionery companies, global commodity traders and small farmers, often in poor countries, notably in west Africa.…

El Salvador clothing manufacturers are seeking to solidify their focus on underwear exports, from basic cotton intimates to trendy and sophisticated lingerie. Flagship US-based underwear companies have settled production in this central American outsourcing hub, making a wide range of lingerie and more basic underwear, such as HanesBrands, Fruit of the Loom and Intradeco.…

US textile manufacturer HanesBrands says it has invested USD5.2 million in new technology and staff in El Salvador in the last six months and plans to inject USD5.2 million more in the central American country by the New Year. The international manufacturer has so far this year set up a new garment dying line at its San Juan Opico, La Libertad department plant, expanded its socks production in the same complex, and increased its workforce to meet global demand.…

THE HONDURAS clothing sector industry association has welcomed the expansion of the Central American Customs Union into a three-country bloc, with El Salvador joining Guatemala and Honduras to forge a light border trading zone of more than 32 million people. El Salvador will officially accede to the union (see below for more information) in November, allowing 95% of products manufactured in its members to freely circulate in the region duty free through common customs, security, and other rules, strengthening local supply chains.…

The American Apparel & Footwear Association (AAFA) conference in Washington DC, on April 25, has heard how the clothing sector needs to boost innovation to sharpen its competitive edge in commercially uncertain times.

Whether creating prototypes from designs within minutes through 3D printing, fabrics being dyed as completed pieces and introducing wearable technology throughout wardrobes, speakers stressed how new concepts could all become mainstream in the clothing industry’s future.…

Prospects for trade deals that have underpinned the growth in American clothing and textile imports and exports appear increasingly precarious as the administration of President Donald Trump passes the 300-day mark, participants at a clothing industry conference heard this week.

Concern is especially severe regarding the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), as indicated by ‘SaveNAFTA’ being the password to access a mobile app provided to attendees at the 29^th annual Apparel Importers Trade & Transportation Conference held by the American Import Shippers Association (AISA) and the United States Fashion Industry Association (USFIA) on November 15, in New York City.…

DESPITE significant progress in tightening anti-money laundering (AML) controls within Mexico, and significant progress in fighting the country’s notoriously violent drug traffickers, the fact is that the amount of dirty money laundered in the country remains eye-wateringly high. Despite headline grabbing events such as the arrest and extradition to the USA (in January) of key players like Joaquín ‘El Chapo’ Guzmán – leader of the Sinaloa cartel, underlying problems in Mexican AML policy remain, including budget cuts to AML-related law enforcement and concerns over a weakening of US-Mexico law enforcement cooperation following the election of President Donald Trump amidst anti-Mexican rhetoric.…

In less than a year, Brazil had three different civil aviation ministers, and Brazil’s ambitious airport development plans have been harmed. One of the trio – Mauro Lopes – is a member of the Chamber of Deputies that voted for the motion to impeach President Dilma Rousseff over allegations she warped government accounts.…

MEXICO and central America are often regarding as manufacturing centres for the USA, the world’s largest personal care product country. And while it remains true that brands take advantage of lower costs in these countries to make competitive exports, Mexico (population 122 million) and the seven countries of central America (Belize, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Guatemala, Honduras and Panama – population 45 million) are significant markets in their own right.…

A MEETING of the European Parliament’s special committee on tax rulings has grilled multinationals over European Union (EU) member state tax rulings. The European Commission fears they have been abused by governments giving companies low tax rates in return for registering businesses in their jurisdictions.…

THE EUROPEAN Commission may block or impose conditions on a planned acquisition by US-based Cargill of the industrial chocolate business of its American rival Archer Daniels Midland (ADM). The European Union (EU) executive’s directorate general for competition has opened an in-depth investigation into the deal, to assess whether it could damage the availability of reasonably priced supplies of this key confectionery input.…

THE RISK of being kidnapped is a significant concern for those travelling for business to unstable and dangerous regions of the world. Yet, travellers can reduce these risks by following preventative measures and making smart plans, say business security experts. Elizabeth Machuca reports from Mexico City.…

Central America’s increasing exposure to money laundering is at least being recognised by the governments on the region, who are working both individually and collectively to combat the problem.

The region has strengthened cooperation, for instance. A key initiative is the Central American Integration System (SICA), a regional political organisation which coordinates government actions for Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Panama, Belize and the Dominican Republic regarding certain policy development and programmes, notably improving law enforcement.…

Mexico, South America, and the United States are usually the focus of discussions about money laundering, drug-trafficking and transnational crime in the Western Hemisphere. However, as countries like Mexico and Colombia have upped their security game, criminals have taken advantage of their small Central American neighbours as weaker links for both the transport of drugs and the laundering of illicit funds associated with the trade.…

IN the 1970s and 1980s, the governments of Latin America and the Caribbean did not have a comprehensively robust reputation for sound financial management. Many Caribbean island states had newly emerged from colonialism, finding their way as independent countries. And many Latin American countries were riven by social discord, even civil war, with many under military rule.…

Colombia has perhaps the strongest reputation in Latin America for playing host to powerful illicit drug cartels and their related money laundering. As a result, it is perhaps reassuring that over the past three years, the Colombian government, through the country’s Attorney General’s Office, seized between USD1 billion and USD1.2 billion, according Luis Edmundo Suárez, Colombia’s Unidad de Información y Análisis Financiero – financial information and analysis unit (UIAF).…

THE NICARAGUAN government has raised fears that the planned reopening of the US market to Brazilian beef could risk spreading foot-and-mouth disease (FMD) to north and central America. Its representatives spoke out at a meeting this week (Thursday March 26) of the World Trade Organisation’s (WTO) sanitary and phytosanitary committee, in Geneva.…

AN INTERNATIONAL higher education conference has underlined the major progress made in building links between the universities of neighbouring countries in Latin America. But it also highlighted the significant remaining challenges facing Latin American higher education if it wants to be truly integrated with tertiary institutions worldwide.…

AN INTERNATIONAL higher education conference has underlined the major progress made in building links between the universities of neighbouring countries in Latin America. But it also highlighted the significant remaining challenges facing Latin American higher education if it wants to be truly integrated with tertiary institutions worldwide.…

ACCORDING to World Bank data on Brazil, air transport measured in passengers carried jumped from 32.3 million in 2003 to 94.6 million passengers in 2012. And airport infrastructure has failed to keep up with this rapid growth in demand. Adding the extra 600,000 tourists which the Brazilian Institute of Tourism expects to visit the country during the 2014 FIFA World Cup and Brazil’s creaking airports could struggle to cope.…

IT is common sense that for really fast fashion, sourcing should be made as close to a home market as costs will allow. And for the world’s two largest fast fashion markets – the European Union (EU) and the United States – geography does provide some useful neighbours able to offer lower cost out-sourcing, albeit not as cheap as in east and south Asia.…

The Inter-American Drug Abuse Control Commission (CICAD), a technical agency of the Organisation of American States (OAS), is playing an increasingly influential role in the Americas in terms of fighting drug-trade linked money laundering. Specifically, CICAD has a central role in the unfolding of the Hemispheric Plan of Action on Drugs 2011-2015 which was adopted by the OAS in 2011, and includes key anti-money launderingAML components.…

BY MJ DESCHAMPS

REUSING and reprocessing clothing, fibres and scraps is an effective way to create sustainability in the apparel industry – however, textile recycling is currently facing barriers associated with cost, time, and technology. But, with sustainability gaining increasing importance in every industry, many services are being offered by both apparel manufacturers and other clothing and sector organisations to help improve recycling outputs.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

THE TOWN of Asbestos in French-speaking Québec, Canada – named after the mineral that underpins its economy – is waiting to see whether its provincial government will approve a Canadian dollar CAD58 million (US dollar USD56 million) loan enabling an underground mine to tap an immense deposit.…

BY WACHIRA KIGOTHO

EAST Africa is developing as an important source of biofuels and biofuel feedstock, with governments keen to attract foreign direct investment for this potentially strategic rural development option.

Ethiopia, Kenya, Mozambique, Sudan, and Tanzania are countries where foreign companies are competing to acquire land for biofuel projects.…

BY PACIFICA GODDARD

A decade ago, Latin America was considered to be one of the beer industry’s toughest markets, due to frequent bouts of economic uncertainty and political turmoil. But a lot has changed in the region since the year 2000, and recently instead of recoiling from this region, the biggest beer companies in the world have been fighting tooth and nail for shares of it.…

BY PACIFICA GODDARD

INTRODUCTION

There are signs around the world that the textile market is beginning to recover from the global economic crisis, and developing markets will be leading that recovery. Asia is, of course, at the forefront, but many countries in Latin America have also weathered the crisis and have come out in a surprisingly decent position, with their dynamic textile and apparel industries well positioned for future expansion.…

BY PACIFICA GODDARD

CHINA’S entry into the World Trade Organisation (WTO) in 2002 and the recent end of quotas in the US and European markets have created gigantic changes in the textile industry worldwide, with developing markets like those in Latin America expected to suffer the most from these shifts.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

EUROPEAN Parliament officials have ordered an investigation into the discovery that two buildings the European Union (EU) assembly bought last year in Strasbourg are riddled with asbestos. However, administrators say that the asbestos is located in "a limited number of technical facility rooms" in its Winston Churchill bloc and the Salvador de Madariaga unit, and so "poses no public health risk".…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

THE MULTILATERAL Investment Guarantee Agency (MIGA), of the World Bank, is guaranteeing US$2 million in risk for a project to convert El Salvador landfill methane to carbon dioxide, a less powerful greenhouse gas. The project will generate carbon credits for sale on world markets, in MIGA’s first Kyoto Protocol-linked guarantee, which will be made to investor Biothermica Energy Inc, of Canada.…

BY WESLEY GIBBINGS, in Port of Spain, Trinidad

WITH its multiple small jurisdictions, offshore tax havens and proximity to both drug producing countries in Latin America and the United States, the Caribbean has always been a focus of global anti-money laundering efforts.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE UNITED States’ Distilled Spirits Council has congratulated the US Congress for approving the Dominican Republic-Central American Free Trade Agreement (DR-CAFTA) for opening central American markets to USA spirit exports. Central American countries (Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, and Nicaragua) and the Dominican Republic will immediately abolish tariffs on US-produced whiskey and gin.…

BY MONICA DOBIE
THE UNITED States’ Distilled Spirits Council has congratulated the US Congress for approving the Dominican Republic-Central American Free Trade Agreement (DR-CAFTA) for opening central American markets to USA spirit exports. Central American countries (Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, and Nicaragua) and the Dominican Republic will immediately abolish tariffs on US-produced whiskey and gin.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Food Safety Authority (EFSA) has concluded that beef cattle from Costa Rica, El Salvador and Nicaragua have an increasing risk of being infected with BSE, although it is currently “unlikely”. EFSA noted potentially contaminated beef livestock had been imported in the 1990s from north America and Europe, and that local controls were “unstable”.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
HONDURAS has won a disputes case at the World Trade Organisation (WTO) with the Dominican Republic being ruled in breach of WTO rules by unfairly restricting the import of Honduran cigarettes. A disputes panel found fault with a special foreign exchange fee, an “economic stabilisation surcharge” and an insistence that importers physically fix within the Dominican Republic tax stamps to packs.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE DOMINICAN Republic heads the list of countries granted low rate tariff quotas by the USA for sugar and sugar-containing product imports made in 2004-5. It has been allocated a 185,335 tonne quota, followed by Brazil with 152,691 tonnes and Philippines, 142,160.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
IN 1995, when I visited the Laos capital Vientiane, it was a sleepy place; a quiet low rise French colonial town on the banks of the Mekong, a listless, aimless, but charming mix of Soviet-style socialist monuments, Buddhist temples and Provencal town houses.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
TOURISM once was regarded as a key to the developing world’s ills, allowing poor countries to make money out of their natural landscape and cultural attractions, but as with most success stories, there is a downside. In some countries, tourism has boomed so suddenly and aggressively, the development it has sparked has threatened to go out of control, spoiling the delights that lured tourists in the first place and creating a host of new environmental problems for governments to deal with.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
A EUROPEAN Parliament probe into allegations that European Union budgetary aid for the Palestinian Authority (PA) was misused – maybe being funnelled into the hands of terrorist groups – has held its first meeting in Strasbourg.

The working group will draw up a report by the end of this year.…

BY SWINEETHA DIAS WICKRAMANAYAKA
A NEW Delhi retailer has launched what it says is India’s first international perfumery gallery, devoting a whole floor of a store to scents from 40 designer brands. The Indian capital’s Kunchals is now selling lines from Gucci, Elizabeth Arden, Nina Ricci, Christian Dior, Escada, Cartier, Trussardi, Boss, La Praire, Benetton, Dunhill, Mont Blanc, Azzaro, Ferrari, Kenzo, Salvador Dali, Rochas, Lacoste, Nikos, Carlina Herrara, among others.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE WORLD Bank is lending El Salvador US$18.2 million to improve the effectiveness, efficiency and accessibility of its judicial system. The central American country is emerging from a long civil war, which was marked by human rights abuses and a lack of due process.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
COSTA Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, and Panama have signed a Convention on Cooperation in the Protection and Sustainable Development of the Marine and Coastal Environment of the Northeast Pacific, which will lead to an assessment of oil pollution risks and a spills strategy.…