The Economy -- Funes meets with world bankers

Preparing to face the economic challeges confronting El Salvador, president-elect Mauricio Funes was meeting with world finance officials according to this report from Xinhua:

MEXICO CITY, May 6 (Xinhua) -- El Salvador's President-elect Mauricio Funes began a two-day meeting with international financial institutions including the Inter-American Development Bank (IADB), the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund on Wednesday, according to news reaching here.

Funes told media in San Salvador that the meeting would be used to define 'counter-cyclical measures which must be put in place as soon as possible to face the crisis,' according to website El Salvador.com. He also said he may separately seek additional lending from the Central American Bank for Economic Integration.

El Salvador's exports have been falling at a rate of 11.7 percent and imports of intermediate goods have been falling at 25.7 percent due to the current world economic slowdown.

A big chunk of El Salvador's exporters are operators of so-called maquilas, the factories that import intermediate goods and export finished goods, mostly to the United States.

Counter-cyclical measures are those designed to compensate for the ups and downs of the economic cycle, spending in times of economic slowdown and suspending when the economy is dynamic.