Saca interview in Miami Herald

The Miami Herald runs an interview of Salvadoran president Tony Saca today. Here are a couple of soundbites:

Saca was asked why El Salvador's economic growth lagged the rest of the countries in the region:

The low prices of our principal export products, such as coffee and sugar, over many years have severely affected our economy, in addition to the rising cost of oil. Over the past 10 years, El Salvador never had an inflation rate of more than 5 percent as we do now because of the high price of oil.

But don't those same factors affect the other countries in the region?

Saca was asked about the benefits CAFTA would purportedly bring to the region. One of the benefits Saca listed was a new one:

CAFTA is also important because it allows us to export ethnic products to the natural market we have of 2.5 million Salvadorans who live in [the United States]. CAFTA has a very important future in the generation of new jobs for Central America.

Now I understand. Salvadorans leave the country looking for economic survival, and now El Salvador can develop a booming export market in pupusas.