AUGUST 2 0 0 7
Issue 7

LETTER FROM THE EDITOR

H O T O F F T H E P R E S S
Events, announcements and news
from around the region. Que Pasa?

C O U N T R Y F O C U S : HONDURAS
An Interview : With His Excellency
Lifestyles:An Education in Friendship
Expats : The Anatomy of a Transpat
Consumers : The Retail Therapy Call
Opportunities : Investments & Jobs

S P E C I A L F E A T U R E S
Conference : Wholesale Investments
Grenada : First Carbon Zero Tourist
Nicaragua : Surviving a Papagallo
Guatemala : Teco Tours & Thermal
Panama : Cockfights v.Sesame Foam
Under Tobago : Protecting the Reefs

P I C K O F T H E M O N T H
Utila, Honduras Waterfront Homes
Costa Rica Gated Community Villas
Honduras Sale Affordable Business

H O T O F F T H E P R E S S

Remember the Moke?

That funky, little open-topped personality -on -four wheels that we used to see hammering round the pot-holed corners of the tropical islands of the British West Indies.

Well its back!

Modern, stylish and still just right for tropical travelling on small islands.

In Birmingham, England the first Moke was produced as a British “jeep”, in 1964 for the British Army. Over the ensuing 29 years approximately 50,000 Mokes were manufactured and the brand soon formed a cult following. Since that time, a dedicated cadre of Moke aficionados have been assiduously championing the Moke phenomena.

With the emergence of contemporary eco sensitivity, as well as rising fuel costs, the original Moke concept of a light weight, fuel efficient, fun to drive vehicle, has once again come of age.

A consortium of international businessmen have released a modern version of the venerable Moke, to rekindle old love affairs and ignite new passions in the now generation.

Imagine yourself driving with three of your friends, down your favourite road, with the sun on your back and the wind in your hair, enjoying your favourite tunes. This can now be an affordable reality.

Mokes are inexpensive, stylish, fun, functional, unique vehicles built specifically for the tropics.

Each Moke is custom made to fit your specification and island lifestyle. Your Moke comes in a choice of nine, vibrant tropical colours with a selection of three interior fabric colours. You can further individualize your Moke with choice of colours for the grill, roll bars and bumpers. Personalise your Moke with an optional built in Ipod mount and hifi system. Five sexy aluminium wheels and snap on convertible roof are standard equipment on your stylish island transport.

The Moke is fully galvanized for years of rust free island driving.

Dealerships are currently operating in many countries, so please contact us for the location of the dealer nearest you.

Introductory price: $14,990 U.S.D. FOB England.

Email:
info at moke dot com

Or Click here for more information

The Caribbean tourism market is a large and very competitive cake. And Cuba is looking for ways to increase the size of its slice.

With the next Caribbean island/country often no more than 30 miles away, the fickle tourist industry needs a lot of icing to keep it sweet.

The word on the streets of Habana is that in order to increase tourism the exchange levy of 10-20% may either be lowered or even eliminated.

This perhaps may happen in the near future or before the winter tourist season begins. The whispers in street Cuban Spanish are : “Quisas, Quisas, Quisas.”

Prior to 911 in the U.S., tourism to Cuba was on a steady rise of an amazing 20% per year. After 911 not only Cuba but the entire Caribbean suffered from a drastic drop in tourism, but Cuba suffered badly as she relies so heavily on tourism and foreign exchange.

It was a warning; even though since then things have stabilised.

Since the elimination of parity between the U.S. dollar and the Cuban Peso, the exchange charges for U.S. Dollars has been around higher than for the Euro or British pound.

Currently this means that $1000. U.S. converts to somewhere around $800 Cuban Tourist Dollars (CUCs) These are tourist dollars and can only be used by tourists. Tourists cannot use the local National Pesos (CUP).

See. http://coinmill.com/CUC_calculator.html for the latest exchange rate.

Cuba is recognising its need to be more competitive and attract visitors to the Caribean from other islands, with a fairer and less divisive currency exchange system.

On March 30th 2007, Paradise Bay Resort completed the installation of a utility-grade windmill with an estimated output of 180,000 kWh per year.

"The first in the Eastern Caribbean", says owner entrepreneur James Post.

But James has only just got started.

As the 9 villa resort is calculated to use less than 120,000 kWh, the resort has excess energy and James has had a long standing agreement to sell that energy to the local, monopoly power company on Grenada, Grenlec. However, two weeks ago and without warning, Grenlec imposed a $73,000, non-agreed “interconnection fee” in addition to a demand for non-agreed “impact” and other studies all to be paid by the resort. This was four months after the interconnection should have taken place, and nine months after agreement on the conditions.

James is not happy about this, and states "As Grenlec, whose parent company is WRB Enterprises Inc.,Tampa, Florida, did not respond to the many requests we sent to honor the agreed conditions which are now four months overdue, we have decided to go ahead and commission the windmill. Our guests now enjoy our facilities courtesy of the Atlantic Trade winds, and not oil."

Not one to stand around becoming frustrated with Grenlec, who is currently allowing all the excess energy the resort now generates, literally to waste away, James has formulated a new strategy. He has started talking to responsive ECO friendly micro-industries in Grenada to encourage them to relocate closer to the resort so that they can take up the opportunity of using all this renewable energy which is now being generated on their island.

He is a motivated promoter of wind energy and offers others assistance in feasibility study and practical assistance during installation in the Caribbean. James notes, "WRB Enterprises has a daughter company, Caribbean Wind Power Inc. which seems to have a similar mission. I quote from their website: “We work in conjunction with major wind power developers and suppliers to bring this technology to the Caribbean”.

To further promote green energy, the resort offers students an opportunity to use the sustainable approach at Paradise Bay as an example to produce a 60 seconds video and participate in the “60 seconds to save the earth” contest (open for US, UK and Ireland), as announced at Live Earth by Cameron Diaz.

To read articles by James Post, go to 'author' search options at the bottom of this page. You can also search magazine archives by subject, country or date.

For more information, contact:

Tel: 473-405-8888

jamespost at spiceisle.com

More Information on Paradise Bay Resort & Spa

The clubhouse is just steps away from your front door and offers a restaurant, bar, pool and meeting facilities, all of which overlook the beautiful Beach at Keyhole Bay, the heart of the community.

Call it an “island paradise” … or a “sunlit Eden” … Call it “the most exclusive community – and best investment - in the beautiful Bay Islands … Or simply call it “Keyhole Bay”…

But, best of all, for a fraction of what you’d expect to pay for such luxurious living in a tropical paradise, now you can call it “Home.”

"Welcome to Keyhole Bay..."

A unique opportunity to acquire some of the most exquisite oceanfront condominiums you can find anywhere … in this Bay Islands paradise – at the lowest pre-construction prices ever offered.

These luxury condominiums – there will be only 45 in all – are the final stage of a private Caribbean community catering only to those who are accustomed to enjoying the finer things in life.

For more information:
CLICK HERE

Canada’s Prime Minister Stephen Harper recently visited the Caribbean in a whirlwind visit, and brought a message with him - A commitment by Canada to the region is a priority of his government.

Canada is alone in the world to have made this commitment, and this bring a much needed champion to the councils of influential multilateral organisations in which no Caribbean state has a voice. It also yields much needed help in making Caribbean economies and their companies more competitive in a global market place where larger economies and huge multinational companies are increasingly dominating the scene and pushing out small economies and small companies.

More than 500,000 people of Caribbean origin live in Canada and two-way goods and services trade runs in excess of C$3 billion annually. Stronger fiscal and political support will benefit the Caribbean but also Canada.

In prioritising the Caribbean, Canada will identify a number of areas for further discussion.

Canadian small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) seeking international exposure will get the opportunity to gain experience in foreign markets that are familiar and accessible. CARICOM offers not only common languages but a shared legal and business culture. Much of the Canadian presence in the Caribbean services industry (telecommunications, business, energy, and tourism services) is already made up of SMEs. An agreement with CARICOM will provide an incentive to even more Canadian SMEs to expand their international competitiveness and capacity.

More Canadian resources will be directed at the Caribbean, including more resources to the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA).

CIDA can provide resources to help the region develop the capacity to participate effectively in trade negotiations, it could help with economic adjustment and it could help with the development of the Caribbean’s human resources to make the region more competitive in the world.

Mr. Harper said, “My travels this week have convinced me that Canada can play a dynamic role working with our partners in the hemisphere to build a prosperous and safe neighborhood of nations committed to democratic values and social inclusion."

This relationship could develop into a showcase opportunity for the rest of the world to see how a small region and a larger state can work together for the benefit of all.

Standard & Poor's Ratings Services released this week that it has raised its long-term sovereign credit rating on Grenada to 'B-' from 'CCC+', after efforts by the government to improve debt-payment management.

The forecast is for continuing stability.

The ratings are held down by the persistently difficult fiscal situation and slower-than-expected economic recovery after the huge damage done by 2004's Hurricane Ivan.

The fiscal deficit, at 7.1% of GDP in 2006 (4.5% on a general government level, including the 2.6% Social Security surplus) was worse than projected. ongoing inefficiencies in tax revenue collection, declining inflow of grants. Due to the deeply rooted difficulty in containing capital expenditure, especially in light of expenditure related to the Cricket World Cup.

A number of measures in the 2007 budget-including strengthening of the revenue collection departments, cutting tax exemptions, and working with the International Monetary Fund team under the Poverty Reduction and Growth Facility to set responsible fiscal targets-have been put in place to boost the fiscal accounts.

However, the recently announced postponement of the VAT introduction (originally expected in October 2007), decreasing inflow of grants, preelection spending pressures amid a polarized political situation, and ongoing large reconstruction needs are likely to work in the opposite direction, putting downward pressure on fiscal performance.

And at grass roots level, the government does not have the resources to subsidise basic foodstuffs and utilities. Grenadians are thus seeing the effects of inflation and are paying more for bread, cooking gas and transportation, in keeping with price hikes announced by the government.

Flour is up by 7-10%, bus fares by 25% and the price of cooking gas is also higher.

According to ECLAC, by the end of 2007, the area's per capita GDP will have risen by 20.6% over the last six years. This 3% annual growth is shared across the Caribbean islands and South and Central American.

ECLAC attributes the global economy as the driving force to this positive growth. Higher prices for raw materials such as oil from Trinidad and Tobago and gold in Suriname underpin it further.

"However, not all countries have been able to capitalise upon the favourable external environment," ECLAC states. "In contrast with South America, export prices of Central American countries and many Caribbean ones (excepting Trinidad and Tobago and Suriname) have not improved."

ECLAC predicts a 5.5% economic growth for the Caribbean by year-end, in response to two trends; savings on balance of payments accounts less spending in public sectors.

The Dominican Republic is listed third across the entire hemiphere for expected growth by year-end with increases of 7.5% predicted, putting it behind Panama and Argentina. Haiti is at the bottom of the list with a projected growth rate of 3.5%.

Inflation also generally went down across Latin America and the Caribbean from an average of 6.1% in 2005 to 5% in 2006.

Most countries also managed to shrink their external debt burden.

"In ECLAC's view, trends in the international economy and the relative strength of the region's economies provide grounds for cautious optimism."

More information can be found here:

http://www.eclac.cl

RETIRE OVERSEAS!
Learn about the world's
9 best places to
live or retire.

Live well on $19 a Day.
Own a beachfront getaway for $35,000. Enjoy dining/$7 per person.

Details in your FREE report