Assorted economic news

• More aircraft maintenance jobs coming to El Salvador. Air Canada has acquired an interest in the aircraft maintenance subsidiary of TACA airlines and plans to move maintenance of its fleet to El Salvador. According to a recent article in EDH, the expansion will create jobs for 517 engineers and 3,447 technicians between 2008 and 2012. JetBlue and America West already outsource some of their aircraft maintenance to El Salvador.


• Peace not sufficient for economic growth. An article published by the Inter Press Service interviews several economists who look at a variety of structural factors which have prevented El Salvador from achieving real economic improvement for the bulk of the population since the signing of the 1992 Peace Accords.


• Ethanol demand drives up corn prices. There is increasing demand for corn on world markets to use for the production of ethanol. As the US turns to ethanol as one element of reducing its dependency on oil, the price has begun to rise. The rise in corn prices is bad for consumers who buy corn in El Salvador, but good for the small farmers who were threatened by lower cost subsidized agricultural imports from the US.