Reply #4: Will maquilas survive the coup?

[L. Coyote]

Honduras: will maquilas survive the coup?
Submitted by WW4 Report on Wed, 09/30/2009 - 10:43 - http://www.ww4report.com/node/7778

As of the morning of Sept. 28, a 45-day state of siege decreed by the de facto Honduran government was in effect ...

The economy "stopped" after Zelaya's return as a result of protests by coup opponents and a Sept. 22-23 round-the-clock curfew by the de facto regime, according to Sandra Midence, de facto president of the central bank, the Banco Central de Honduras (BCH). Jesús Canahuati, former president of the Honduran Maquiladora Association (AHM), said the two-day curfew alone had cost the country $50 million a day. Honduras, with a $14.1 billion annual gross domestic product (GDP), has lost as much as $200 million in investment since the coup, he said. (Bloomberg News, Sept. 24; El Nuevo Herald, Miami, Sept. 27 from Bloomberg)

Even before the June coup, the Honduran maquiladora sector was suffering because of competition from China and declining demand from the US, the country's main export market, now in its worst recession in decades. "In 2008 there were $3.5 billion in exports, while the projection for the end of 2009 would be around $2.7 billion, less than the amount expected a few months ago," Guillermo Matamoros, an AHM regional director, told the Costa Rican newspaper El Financiero in early September. The year's decline for the apparel export sector might be as much as 22.8%.

The Honduran maquiladora sector now employs about 114,000 workers directly; the industry claims that each maquiladora job generates four other jobs, so that the sector's total contribution to the country's GDP would be around 26%. The sector lost 15,000 jobs in 2008 and about 8,000 more so far this year. Jesús Canahuati said another 4,000 workers would probably be laid off in the last three months of 2009. ........

.... maquiladora workers have been forced to work overtime, in clear violation of labor law, to make up for time lost during the curfews ......