Mexico´s Communications and Transportation Department said last week the government expects to earn more than $600 million from an initial public offering this year of its 85 percent stake in the Pacific airport group. "This is going to be the biggest private airport group in the Americas," said Rodolfo Salgado, who heads the department´s group in charge of privatizations and other projects.

Caribbean Community Heads of Government concluded last week their 26th annual summit in St Lucia on a high note of optimism, stressing the "triumph of unity" against a backdrop of sharp differences over critical issues. These include West Indies cricket, petroleum demands and supplies and modalities of conducting their own business.

A wave of strikes and opposition protests against the government´s social security reform is likely to delay an ambitious $4 billion plan to widen the Panama Canal in an effort to relieve congestion from growing traffic. The social security changes, approved in May, are designed to head off bankruptcy of the government pensions system and to clean up public finances, a move that would clear the way for the Canal to seek financing for the expansion on favorable terms.

Ecuador became this week the riskiest country in Latin America, according to JP Morgan Emerging Markets Bond Index, EMBI, with a 799 basic points rating. Doubts about Ecuador´s sustainability of future foreign debt payments, plus the recent Argentine rescheduling process, have shot up the risk country factor, which measures the difference between a sovereign bond risk and US Treasury bonds.

The leaders of the eight richest countries in the world, who met last week in Scotland, may be missing an opportunity to help poor countries help themselves. The G-8 summit omitted tourism from its agenda, despite global evidence that the hospitality industry provides an avenue to sustained prosperity in poor countries that have few other resources or access to world markets.

Venezuela´s state-run oil firm Petroleos de Venezuela S.A. (PDVSA) will supply the fourteen Caribbean nations that signed an accord joining the Petrocaribe regional energy scheme with a total 185,700 barrels a day (b/d) of oil, PDVSA president and energy and oil minister Rafael Ramirez told reporters earlier this week. Of that total, Cuba is currently getting 98,000 b/d, while the Dominican Republic will get 50,000 b/d, Jamaica 14,000 b/d and the remaining countries 23,700 b/d.