El Salvador plots its future financial miracle – DW – 11/26/2024 | EUROtoday

The trendy new central library in El Salvador’s capital San Salvador is buzzing with exercise.

The futuristic-looking glass constructing, which is positioned reverse town’s cathedral and subsequent to the presidential palace, has became a household assembly hub.

Children learn or play, dad and mom watch them, and the collection of books is spectacular.

The total venture was financed by China and is a part of a modernization venture for the historic middle in San Salvador.

However, El Salvador President Nayib Bukele needs to remodel rather more than simply the capital’s metropolis middle — he has a imaginative and prescient for the whole nation.

“Our next step is to ensure that the world perceives El Salvador more for its economic miracle than for its security miracle,” he said, including, “this will take a few more years, but we are on the right track.”

Security state of affairs stabilized

According to official knowledge, El Salvador has reworked itself from one of the crucial harmful international locations in Latin America to the most secure.

The variety of murders fell from nearly 4,000 in 2017 to lower than 80 within the first few months of 2024.

The authorities arrested greater than 80,000 suspected members of the dreaded “Mara” gangs as a part of an ongoing state of emergency that started in 2022.

The time period “Mara” contains quite a few legal gangs that function all through Central America.

Their foremost companies are arms, medication and human trafficking in addition to prostitution.

However, human rights and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) criticize the crackdown, saying it has landed hundreds of harmless folks in jail.

Critics say fundamental democratic rights are being undermined and that state of emergency restrictions have negatively impacted regular residents, not simply armed gangsters.

Confident trade

And but the vast majority of the Salvadoran inhabitants feels downright liberated.

The identical is true for small and medium-sized companies, which abruptly not must pay safety cash to the much-feared Mara gangs.

“Small businesses had to give up part of their income for security purposes and the money was then lacking for investments,” Karla Klaus, the director of the German-Salvadoran Chamber of Commerce, instructed DW.

Also, many giant German corporations felt pressured to go away the nation because of the poor safety state of affairs, she added.

However, a present survey by the chamber amongst its round 150 members, reveals that confidence is now considerably larger.

“Numerous companies are considering investments in renewable energy supplies, in upgrading machinery and in hiring new staff,” Klaus instructed DW, observing a common ‘spirit of optimism’ amongst companies.

In April 2024, as an example, Google additionally opened a brand new headquarters in San Salvador.

The American IT big said on the time that it needed to assist digitize and modernize the nation.

Since then, its trendy glass constructing has change into a logo for the hope that the financial miracle may truly be on its means.

Controversial megaproject

The authorities is banking on a ripple impact and can also be pinning additional hopes on tourism.

The “Surf City II” venture, for instance, goals to enchantment to water sports activities fanatics from all around the world.

“We have one of the most spectacular beaches in the country,” Bukele said years in the past.

“Surfers tell me it’s one of the best surfing beaches in the world but there is not even a decent road to get there,” he mentioned.

Also different seashores within the space haven’t been made accessible, Bukele mentioned.

He promotes the venture and has promised to speculate $100 million (€95m).

Furthermore, plans for a brand new, second Pacific airport are within the pipeline. The thought is to deliver vacationers from Western international locations and the southern US on to the seashores.

Investors even have plans to construct new resorts for these goal teams, together with the worldwide browsing scene.

Questioning the guarantees

“The ecological damage of this project is so substantial that a sustainable implementation is basically impossible,” Ines Klissenbauer, Central America skilled on the Latin American support group Adveniat, instructed DW.

In her view, it’s merely one other try by President Bukule to draw capital to the extremely indebted nation.

Claudia Ortiz from the oppositional Vamos occasion stays skeptical, too.

She compares the venture to El Salvador’s failed Bitcoin technique.

“Bitcoin is part of an authoritarian project and a system in which public funds are used at discretion and without transparency,” Ortiz criticizes.

Throughout El Salvador, there are indicators in shops that Bitcoin is accepted as a way of fee.

However, the typical particular person is way from having the ability to afford the digital foreign money.

“El Salvador’s economic problems and the economic needs of the people will not be solved by making Bitcoin a legal tender,” Ortiz instructed DW.

DocFilm – Cryptocurrencies – The Future of Money?

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This article was initially printed in German.