Economy: Venezuela, ALBA, Nicaragua - Past, Present & Future

In Nicaragua, ALBA became an everyday reality for millions of people. Though critics argue it’s impossible to account for the estimated $2.6 billion in ALBA aid that entered Sandinista coffers over the past six years, that money did allow the government to stabilize the country’s desperate energy sector by increasing power production and putting an end to daily blackouts. ALBA also provided electricity subsidies for low-consumption households, transportation subsidies for the working poor, and fellowships for university students. It funded road construction through dust-clouded barrios, provided roofing materials for leaky shanties, monthly cash handouts for thousands of government employees, and other assorted eleemosynary programs for the poor and not-so-poor.

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Political: China, China, China...

China's presence is much more ambitious in Nicaragua, where President Daniel Ortega signed a memorandum of understanding in September with the recently created Hong Kong-based HK Nicaragua Canal Development Investment Co to finance and build a canal linking the Caribbean Sea and the Pacific Ocean - a dream long cherished by Managua. 

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Economy: The Nicaragua Canal

The Nicaraguan Congress, controlled by Ortega's allies, approved a bill on July 3 authorising construction of the inter-oceanic canal project, a joint public/private venture in which the state will have a 51 per cent stake and offer the remaining 49 per cent to countries, international organisations, corporations or individuals... Nicaragua is studying six potential routes, all of which traverse a section of Lake Nicaragua and one that would have ships navigate a portion of the San Juan River, the Nicaraguan-controlled waterway that forms the country's border with Costa Rica.

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