Central America’s Staying Power Stamp

Dominican Republic bonds featuring on the core EMBI seesawed as the ruling party nudged a victory in a split presidential contest amid claims of widespread vote-buying and a smear campaign recalling the opposition candidate’s tenure during the last decade’s banking crisis. The winning PRD will control both chambers in congress and the vice president will be outgoing head Fernandez’s spouse. Incoming President Medina campaigned on “safe change” despite a wave of drug-related crime, clashes with island partner Haiti over immigration, and derailment of the IMF program on unfulfilled electricity and fiscal reforms. Remittances and tourism continue to drive 5 percent GDP growth, and the current account deficit should narrow on lower oil costs. Macquila exports have faded but telecoms and mining activity help absorb the slack, on relative inflation and exchange rate stability. BB-rated Guatemala went beyond the original $500 million 10-year paper to place $700 million at a 6 percent yield with 150 chiefly US buyers. The Perez administration has aimed to quickly establish international confidence with a security and tax push that will take revenues above 10 percent of GDP to leave a budget gap of 2.5 percent. El Salvador may soon follow with external debt as the post-election political formation pursues its own fiscal consolidation, aided by signature of a pilot partnership for growth program with the US engaging both the public and private sectors in policy change. With one of the world’s worst murder rates, it is also struggling with the reconstruction aftermath of tropical storms as the area enters another hurricane season. Costa Rica is courting investors after a corporate utility there tapped the market as top officials hold meetings in New York and Washington. Panama, although a top-grade credit has recently been shunned as property development has cooled and President Martinelli has been implicated in a scandal involving Italian company executives.

English-speaking Belize has rallied as an outperformer on JP Morgan’s NEXGEM index on the prospect of a consensual restructuring for the high-coupon “Superbond,” and in the neighboring Caribbean the new Jamaican government has completed preliminary talks on reactivating the IMF standby agreement. Global bond return has however been stymied by the likelihood of another total debt re-profiling which may this time entail haircuts on both domestic and foreign instruments. Barbados is in pre-election mode with its investment-grade status at risk despite long-term maturities and a captive social security funding pool. Hydrocarbons source Trinidad and Tobago will keep that rank although fracking competition may dent natural gas values. It has traditionally generated balance of payments surpluses and energy producers vastly prefer the operating climate to regional aspirants like Bolivia, which managed a sovereign upgrade after another May Day natural resource firm expropriation wrapped the pole.