• The Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) presented a new edition of its annual report Economic Survey of Latin America and the Caribbean 2025: resource mobilisation to finance development, in which it warns that the region continues to endure a prolonged period of low growth. It is estimated that real Gross Domestic Product (GDP) will grow 2.2% on average in 2025 and 2.3% in 2026, in line with the rates recorded in 2023 and 2024.
• In the Caribbean (excluding Guyana), growth is forecast at 1.8% in 2025 and 1.7% in 2026, marking a deceleration versus 2024. The slowdown is due to lower GDP growth in the United States, and the ensuing reduction in the demand for tourism services, in addition to lower global demand for services.
• The subregion continues to face high costs for energy imports and transportation, as well as notable exposure to natural disasters – factors that impact its external position and debt levels. In contrast, Guyana is seen maintaining high growth rates, thanks to continued investment in the hydrocarbons sector.
• The macroeconomic scenario for 2025-2026 will be marked by less dynamism in domestic aggregate demand. The regional macroeconomic environment will be characterised by weak domestic demand, particularly due to slower private consumption. In addition, international prospects remain unfavourable, limiting the external impetus for regional growth.
• In 2025 and 2026, global economic growth is seen easing as a result of multiple conditioning factors, including geoeconomic tensions and fragmentation, even more restrictive financial conditions, a weakening of international trade, and armed conflicts.
• This is compounded by intensified external vulnerability, reflected in the forecast for a larger current account deficit and in greater dependence on external capital. The report indicates that in the 2025-2026 period, the region’s balance of payments will continue to be subject to various risks, such as the worsening of geopolitical conflicts, the volatility of commodities prices and the synchronised deceleration of the world’s main economies.
• In sum, the report warns that the global and regional outlook for 2025 and 2026 is subject to great uncertainty. The growth dynamics of the region’s economies could deteriorate as a result of increased global risks.

(Source: Caribbean News Global)

• The Bahamas National Statistical Institute (BNSI) released its quarterly advance estimates for gross domestic product (GDP) for 2024, revealing that in the fourth quarter of 2024 (Q4 2024), the Bahamian economy grew by 7.6%, compared to Q4 2023.
• The advance estimates state: “The quarterly gross domestic product (QGDP) trends for 2024 show continued economic growth when compared to the corresponding quarters in 2023, with the exception of the third quarter, which recorded a modest year-over-year decline of less than one percent. The most notable increase occurred in the fourth quarter of 2024, which saw real QGDP grow by 7.6% in the period compared to the same period in 2023.”
• In the first quarter, real GDP increased by 5.8% compared to Q4 2023. In Q2 2024, real GDP rose a further 2.6% compared to Q1 2024, in Q3 2024, real GDP contracted by 5.1% compared to Q2 2024, and for Q4 2024, real GDP rebounded with a 4.4% increase over Q3 2024.
• The report noted that “The second quarter of 2024 recorded the highest real QGDP since the inception of the quarterly series. Key contributors to this performance include the industries of agriculture and fisheries, information and communication, electricity and gas, water supply and sewerage, and accommodation and food services. “
• On the expenditure approach to QGDP, growth was driven by increases in gross fixed capital formation, household final consumption expenditure, and exports of goods and services, particularly within the tourism sector.”

(Source: The Nassau Guardian)

• Britain's economy slowed less than expected between April and June 2025 after a strong start to the year, despite the shock of U.S. trade tariffs and a weaker jobs market. Official figures published on Thursday, August 14, 2025, showed that after an unusually strong 0.7% expansion in the first three months of 2025, gross domestic product grew 0.3% in the second quarter.
• The Office for National Statistics said British GDP fell 0.1% in April 2025 - a smaller decline than first thought - and dropped again in May 2025 before rising 0.4% in June 2025 with growth across services, industry and construction. Economists said much of the growth reflected higher public spending and businesses at home and abroad building up stocks of goods ahead of higher U.S. tariffs.
• The overall year-to-date budget results showed a $1.629Tn deficit, up 7.0%, from the same period a year earlier. Receipts were up 6.0%, or $262Bn, to $4.347Tn, a record high for the 10-month period, while outlays grew 7%, or $374Bn, to $5.975Tn, also a 10-month record. That was above the 0.1% forecast by the Bank of England and a Reuters poll of economists.
• Business investment fell by 4.0% from the first quarter and household spending growth was weak. "The continued reluctance of consumers to open their wallets is concerning," said Thomas Pugh, economist at accountants RSM UK. "We don't expect growth to pick up much from here as continued consumer caution, weaker global demand and tax increases all continue to drag."
• Most economists think Reeves will have to raise taxes in her annual budget in October or November 2025 - potentially by tens of billions of pounds - as a subdued growth outlook and high borrowing costs have made her budget goals harder to reach. "The UK is walking a narrow path between resilience and stagnation. Policy uncertainty in the run-up to the Autumn Budget risks tipping the balance," said CBI lead economist Ben Jones.
• Last week, the BoE forecast Britain's economy would grow 0.3% in the third quarter and 1.25% in 2025 as a whole. The strong growth in the first quarter reflected increased production to avoid U.S. tariffs and more property sales due to the imminent end of a tax break.

(Source: Reuters)

• U.S. producer prices increased by the most in three years in July 2025 amid a surge in the costs of goods and services. This outturn suggested that a broad pickup in inflation was imminent, posing a dilemma for the Federal Reserve (Fed).
• The stronger-than-expected producer inflation report from the Labour Department on Thursday, August 14, 2025, followed data showing consumers paid higher prices for services like dental care and airline fares last month. Also, there were no signs of further labour market deterioration in early August 2025.
• Economists had hoped that moderate services price gains would blunt the inflationary impact of higher goods prices from President Donald Trump's sweeping import tariffs. Though financial markets continued to anticipate the Fed would resume rate cuts in September 2025, some economists urged caution. "This is a kick in the teeth for anyone who thought that tariffs would not impact domestic prices in the United States economy," said Carl Weinberg, chief economist at High Frequency Economics. "This report is a strong validation of the Fed's wait-and-see stance on policy changes."
• The producer price index (PPI) for final demand jumped 0.9% last month, the largest advance since June 2022, after being unchanged in June 2025, the Labour Department's Bureau of Labour Statistics said. Economists polled by Reuters had forecast the PPI rising 0.2%. Notably, a 1.1% jump in the costs of services accounted for more than three quarters of the broad-based increase in the PPI.
• In the 12 months through July, the PPI increased 3.3% after advancing 2.4% in June 2025. Economists said the data suggested businesses were not fully absorbing the higher costs from tariffs as some had argued in the wake of a mild increase in consumer prices in July. "There continues to be clear evidence that prices of a number of durable goods are being passed through to consumers," said Michael Hanson, an economist at J.P. Morgan.

(Source: Reuters)

• For the quarter ending June 30, 2025 (Q3 2025), Salada Foods Jamaica Limited (SALF) reported earnings of $31.01Mn, marking a 51.1% year-over-year decline, as a blend of dwindling revenues and rising operating expenses brewed significant pressure on the company’s bottom line.
• Revenues for the quarter declined by 5.8% to $381.93Mn, largely driven by a decline in sales in the domestic market.
• Cost of sales declined by 0.8% during the quarter; however, the gains was partially offset by elevated input costs, particularly for raw materials and packaging. Combined with a suboptimal price adjustment, these pressures contributed to a 356bps compression in gross margin.
• Operating expenses rose 9.9% in the quarter, reflecting increased strategic investment in organisational capacity, alongside the impact of a non-recurring administrative expense.
• The quarter’s performance poured cold coffee over an already stale blend from the six months ended March 2025, brewing a bitter year-to-date result, with earnings declining by 26.1%, to $119.82Mn for the nine months ended June 2025.
• SALF’s stock price has decreased by 24.6% since the start of the calendar year. The stock closed Wednesday’s trading session at $2.91 and currently trades at a P/E of 20.8x above the Main Market Manufacturing & Distribution Sector Average of 13.0x.

(Sources: JSE and NCBCM Research)

• Despite solid growth in revenues for the quarter ended June 2025 (Q2 2025), the Jamaica Stock Exchange Group’s (JSE) earnings fell sharply (40.9%) to $45.28Mn, year-over-year, due to elevated costs.
• Revenues for the quarter reached $658.55Mn, reflecting a 14.9% increase compared to Q2 2024. Top-line growth was broad-based, with fee income rising by 13.5% and cess increasing by 20.7%, representing the primary contributors to the overall uplift.
• However, growth in operating expenses outpaced topline growth. Operating expenses rose (34.1%) to $607.85Mn for the same period in 2024. A significant net impairment loss on financial assets (+867%), increased staff costs (+14%) reflecting inflationary pressures and the onboarding of new personnel, higher property expenses (+37.8%), and additional operating costs (+86.3%) associated with expanded activities aimed at stimulating growth were the main contributors to the elevated costs.
• Consequently, despite the improvement in revenues during the quarter, earnings plunged to $45.53Mn from $76.99Mn.
• However, despite a challenging quarter, JSE reported a 66.2% increase in earnings to $112.20Mn for the six-month ended June 2025 (H1 2025). The H1 2025 outturn was underpinned by a strong first-quarter performance (+155.5%), which more than offset the decline in Q2 2025.
• That said, elevated interest rates have suppressed market activity over the past two years. However, with price pressures dissipating, interest rates could trend downward, allowing for an uptick in market activity and a potential increase in listings is anticipated. In this scenario, JSE stands to benefit directly from higher fee income and cess, which would ultimately support earnings growth.
• JSE’s stock price has decreased by 1.8% since the start of the calendar year. The stock closed Wednesday’s trading session at $12.95 and currently trades at a P/E of 14.9x above the Main Market Financial Sector Average 13.6x.

 (Sources: JSE & NCBCM Research)

• Trinidad and Tobago’s (T&T’s) economy relies heavily on petroleum exports, which provide about 80.0% of foreign exchange and support the import-driven onshore sector; however, resource depletion is reducing forex earnings and threatening living standards.
• The private sector has limited export capacity, making diversification a slow process; recent forex stability has been sustained by government reserves, savings, and debt, but this is unsustainable without new energy projects.
• The government is banking on Venezuelan gas exploitation and deep-water oil negotiations with Exxon-Mobil, which could bring major forex gains but carry economic risks and depend on external approvals.
• Long-term sustainability requires diversifying into higher-value, knowledge-intensive industries, which demand investment in human capital, Science, Technology & Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) skills, innovation, infrastructure, and institutional quality, alongside small and medium-sized enterprise (SME) and Research and Development (R&D) support.
• Building strong international trade networks, attracting foreign direct investment, and creating a national innovation system are key to overcoming private-sector rigidity and boosting economic complexity for export competitiveness.

(Source: Trinidad Express)

• Authorities and major businesses are drawing up emergency measures to protect citizens from surging prices, after new US tariffs came into effect last week and sparked warnings of further cost-of-living increases.
• Triggered by a new 10.0% duty on Barbadian goods entering the US, which came into force on Thursday as part of President Donald Trump’s sweeping new taxes on imports from more than 90 countries—in his bid to promote domestic manufacturing, protect national security, and substitute for income taxes—the Barbadian business community has also started talks on a parallel plan to shift trading away from the US.
• The plan also includes shifting food imports from the United States, Barbados’ main supplier for decades, to Latin America.
• Describing Barbados as a price-taker due to its high level of imports, President of the Barbados Chamber of Commerce and Industry (BCCI) Paul Inniss said that in many cases, prices from the US “will inevitably be passed on to the consumer”. As a consequence, he disclosed that the BCCI and the government are collaborating on a strategic plan to try to ensure prices do not spiral, particularly as they impact consumers.
• Inniss pointed out that not all businesses will be affected equally, as some do not rely mainly on the US as their source market. However, the bulk of the country’s food is bought from the US, he explained, so those retailers and distributors who source such goods from there will be directly affected.
• He also noted that Barbados buys a lot of materials from the US, in addition to goods channelled through American ports from elsewhere. “There may be implications for some of us who manufacture, assemble and do stuff locally [regarding] how the tariffs will actually impact those things that we purchase elsewhere, that may come through the US,” Inniss argued.
• The chamber president indicated a plan to diversify supply by shifting to other sources, such as Latin America, in phases.

(Source: Barbados Today)

• The likelihood of a Federal Reserve rate cut in September 2025 is now seen near 100.0% after new data showed U.S. inflation increased at a moderate pace in July 2025, and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said he thought an aggressive half-point cut was possible given recent weak employment numbers.
• Traders in contracts tied to the benchmark federal funds rate on Wednesday, July 13, 2025 put the odds of a quarter-percentage point cut at the Fed's September 16-17 meeting at 99.9%, according to estimates calculated by the CME Group's FedWatch tool that followed the release of July Consumer Price Index data on Tuesday, July 12, 2025, and later comments by Bessent noting that the Fed had used fears of a weakening job market as justification for a larger cut last September.
• Fed Chair Jerome Powell is expected to speak at a central bank research conference in Wyoming next week, a forum he used last year to point to coming rate cuts with a promise "to do everything we can to support a strong labour market as we make further progress toward price stability." The Fed cut rates at three meetings at the end of 2024, in September and at two meetings after the election in November and December. It has been on hold since. Notably, at the time, the unemployment rate had risen about three-quarters of a percentage point over the prior year.
• While the unemployment rate has not changed much since, job growth now seems to have slowed, and Bessent rooted his argument for cuts in recent Bureau of Labor Statistics data showing torpid employment gains in May, June and July 2025, in contrast to initial estimates for May and June 2025, indicating stronger employment growth. Fed officials relied on those stronger numbers to argue that the labour market remained in good shape and to hold rates steady at its meetings in June and July 2025.
• Bessent urged rate cuts as the administration moves forward in its search for a replacement for Fed Chair Jerome Powell. The rate cuts Bessent suggested stop far short of Trump's call for the benchmark rate to be cut to 1% but would drop it from the current 4.25% to 4.5% range to around 3% - roughly what Fed policymakers consider to be a "neutral" stance that is neither boosting nor holding back the economy.

(Source: Reuters)

• The U.S. government's budget deficit grew nearly 20% in July 2025 to $291Bn, despite a $21Bn jump in customs duty collections from President Donald Trump's tariffs, with outlays growing faster than receipts, the Treasury Department said on Tuesday, August 12, 2025. Receipts for the month grew 2%, or $8Bn, to $338Bn, while outlays jumped 10%, or $56Bn, to $630Bn, a record high for the month.
• According to a Treasury official, net customs receipts in July 2025 grew to about $27.7Bn from about $7.1Bn in the year-earlier period due to higher tariff rates imposed by Trump. These collections were largely in line with the increase in June 2025 customs receipts after steady growth since April 2025.
• Trump has touted the billions of dollars flowing into U.S. coffers from his tariffs, but the duties are paid by companies importing the goods, with some costs often passed on to consumers in the form of higher prices. Consumer price index data on Tuesday, August 12, 2025, showed increases in prices for some tariff-sensitive goods like furniture, footwear and auto parts, but they were offset by lower gasoline prices in the overall index.
• The overall year-to-date budget results showed a $1.629 trillion deficit, up 7%, or $112Bn, from the same period a year earlier. Receipts were up 6%, or $262Bn, to $4.347Tn, a record high for the 10-month period, while outlays grew 7%, or $374Bn, to $5.975Tn, also a 10-month record.

(Source: Reuters)