Dur­ing the global reces­sion as many as 52,000 jobs could be lost in Nicaragua. Already the poor­est coun­try in the Amer­i­cas, many are say­ing the coun­try will fall well short of meet­ing Mil­len­nium Devel­op­ment Goal num­ber 1, halv­ing poverty by 2015.

From the IPS story, José Adán Silva exam­ines how the coun­try is reel­ing from the global reces­sion.

In late 2008 the pres­i­dent of the Cen­tral Bank, Antenor Ros­ales, fore­cast three per­cent GDP growth for 2009. In Jan­u­ary he revised the esti­mate down­ward, to between one and two per­cent.

The non-governmental Nicaraguan Foun­da­tion for Eco­nomic and Social Devel­op­ment (FUNIDES) pre­dicted in March that GDP would shrink by between 0.4 and 1.7 per­cent. It also esti­mated that between 30,000 and 50,000 peo­ple would lose their jobs, and between 33,000 and 64,000 peo­ple would sink into poverty this year.

In this Cen­tral Amer­i­can coun­try of 5.7 mil­lion, 47 per­cent of the pop­u­la­tions live on less than two dol­lars a day, accord­ing to the United Nations.

This month the Cen­tral Bank con­firmed a fall in exports in the first quar­ter of the year.

Ros­ales said exports from Jan­u­ary to March were worth 355 mil­lion dol­lars, 11 per­cent below exports for the same period in 2008. “The hardest-hit prod­uct is cof­fee,” he added.

The Nicaraguan econ­omy is based on agri­cul­ture and live­stock, and its main sources of rev­enue are exports of grains, meat and meat prod­ucts, tex­tile man­u­fac­tur­ing, tourism, and remit­tances from work­ers liv­ing abroad.

Accord­ing to the Nicaraguan Civil Soci­ety Net­work for Migra­tions, one mil­lion Nicaraguans are work­ing out­side the coun­try, and they send home between 750 mil­lion and 850 mil­lion dol­lars a year.

Exports from duty free zones make up 37 per­cent of total exports in Nicaragua. In the first quar­ter of 2009 they brought in 243 mil­lion dol­lars, 15 per­cent less than in the same period last year.

Tex­tile fac­to­ries in the free zones are among those hit hard­est by the cri­sis. Two com­pa­nies closed down in May, bring­ing to 131 the num­ber of firms that have gone under since 2007. A fur­ther four may close their doors in the com­ing months.

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