Lo que se nos viene

Hola panas, acabo de encontrar estas dos noticias acerca de lo que nuestro "querido don Presi" va a hacer aqui y las perspectivas que se tienen afuera. A continuacion el articulo de The Financial Times:



Investors wary of Ecuador’s president-elect

By Hal Weitzman in Lima

Published: January 3 2007 17:59 | Last updated: January 3 2007 17:59

There are still 11 days to go before Rafael Correa is sworn in as Ecuador’s president on January 15, but the radical leftist has already sparked jitters among foreign investors.

Mr Correa, an ally of Hugo Chávez, the fiery Venezuelan leader, campaigned on a platform of overhauling political institutions, prioritising social spending above debt repayment, reviewing contracts with foreign investors and terminating the lease of the only US military base in South America.

The former finance minister softened some of his rhetoric ahead of his election victory in November, leading to widespread expectations that he would moderate his stated plans once the poll was over. But those hopes have been dashed in recent weeks as the president-elect has reaffirmed his commitment to some of his more contentious pledges.

Mr Correa has said that under no circumstances will he sign a bilateral trade agreement with Washington, has stuck to his promise to eject the US from the Manta base and has condemned as “unacceptable” Colombia’s aerial fumigation of coca crops along the border as part of the US-sponsored “war on drugs”.

He has also reiterated his plan for an assembly to rewrite the constitution, saying the body would have “full powers to limit, restructure or dissolve” any branch of government – in effect crippling Ecuador’s newly elected Congress.

He may well be forced to compromise on his proposals for political reform once in office or face a war of attrition with the legislature. His party opted not to field any candidates for Congress, which it views as rotten and discredited. That means he faces a near-universally hostile legislature that will resist any attempt to limit its powers.

Recognising that rewriting the constitution will be a fraught exercise, Mr Correa may choose to focus his efforts instead on his plans for the oil sector and for handling Ecuador’s $11bn (€8.4bn, £5.6bn) debt burden.

If his agenda is blocked on the domestic front, he could feel more pressure to act against foreign investors and bondholders to prove he has not lost his radical credentials.

Superficially, Mr Correa’s views on debt are clear. “With this level of debt, we cannot move the country forward,” he said in December. “A country that spends twice as much on foreign debt as it does on education cannot develop.”

But in fact his views have produced uncertainty and confusion: he has refused to rule out an “Argentina-style” default, insisting that any renegotiation will be friendly rather than imposed.

The danger for Mr Correa and Ecuador is that the mere threat of default could prompt an “Argentina-style” financial crisis and a run on the banks, putting pressure on the country’s dollarised economy and weakening his position as president.

His refusal to clarify his intentions has wreaked havoc on perceptions of Ecuador’s credit worthiness: every time Mr Correa has restated his wish to restructure commercial, bilateral and multilateral debt, the value of the country’s bonds has tumbled. The issue has more to do with political will than economic need: Ecuador, the region’s second-largest exporter of crude to the US, is being cushioned by the oil price boom and can afford to pay its debt.

Most analysts are still betting that Mr Correa will calculate that the public purse is sufficiently well stocked to increase social spending and still make debt payments. However, Wall Street is still jittery, valuing Ecuador as more risky than Iraq. In recent weeks, the cost of a credit default swap covering Ecuador has soared.

On oil, Mr Correa has said he intends to review contracts individually, and will renegotiate those in which the government take is too low. That is unwelcome for foreign investors in the sector such as Repsol of Spain, Brazil’s Petrobras, Andes Petroleum of China and Perenco of France, which since April have been paying a new tax of 50 per cent on their “extraordinary profits”.

The president-elect has said he will not seek to change all existing contracts but is clearly intent on going for much bigger government revenues in some cases, saying last month that four out of every five barrels produced should be channelled into development.

Mr Correa has also said he favours rejoining the Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries, which Ecuador left in 1992. Although the International Energy Agency in Paris has warned that to do so could inhibit fresh private investment, Opec membership would suit Mr Correa’s strategy of strengthening the power of Petroecuador, the state oil company, relative to that of foreign investors.

The detail of Mr Correa’s plans is still being worked on, but the confident voices that predicted he would soon turn market-friendly are becoming more uncertain.

Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2007


Ah, y otra perlita: adivinen quien va a venir al cambio de mando...el mister "Bombas Atomicas sin importar lo que diga la IAEA"; exacto, hablo de Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, el desgraciado que hace unas semanas nego que el Holocausto haya siquiera ocurrido. Quedan invitados desde ya a acolitarme al Congreso con pancartas de protesta el dia 15.

Tomado de Diario Hoy:
Presidente de Irán llega a cambio de mando

Transición: ocho mandatarios y un vicepresidente vendrán al país

A menos de diez días de la transmisión del mando presidencial, la Cancillería confirmó ayer la presencia en el Ecuador del secretario general de la Organización de Estados Americanos (OEA), José Miguel Insulza, a los actos del 15 de enero donde el presidente electo Rafael Correa asumirá el poder hasta enero de 2011.

Esa visita genera expectativa una vez que este 9 de enero el Consejo Ejecutivo de la OEA debatirá la denuncia que hizo el Ecuador sobre “la actitud hostil e inamistosa” de Colombia de reiniciar las fumigaciones áreas con glifosato en la frontera con el Ecuador en la última quincena de diciembre de 2006.

Los jefes de Estado, de Irán, Mahmud Ahmadinejad; de Chile, Michelle Bachelet; de Paraguay, Nicanor Duarte; de Brasil, Luiz Inácio “Lula” da Silva; de Bolivia, Evo Morales; de Venezuela, Hugo Chávez; de Perú, Alan García; de la república Árabe Saharaui Democrática, Mohamed Abdelaziz, y el vicepresidente de Uruguay. También estará el príncipe Felipe de Asturias. El presidente de Colombia, Álvaro Uribe, dijo ayer que “Dios quiere que pueda ir al Ecuador”. (SC/AM)

Que desgracia, simplemente.