Bank of Nova Scotia has reportedly acquired Citibank´s retail banking business in the Dominican Republic, including three branches, for an undisclosed price. The deal, announced Tuesday, consolidates Scotia Bank´s position as the Dominican Republic´s fifth-largest private bank by assets, with 57 bank branches, 75 automated banking machines and more than 1,000 employees.

Goldman Sachs has downgraded its rating for Carnival Corp. in the wake of the cruise line´s decision not to embrace recommendations made by the Wall Street investment firm in a report last month. Among those recommendations, Goldman Sachs suggested that cruise lines reduce the commissions they pay travel agents for bookings from an average of 14 percent to 10 percent.

Debt, inflation and Asia´s strong economic growth forced Latin America´s share of the world´s GDP to drop 1.8 points in the last quarter of a century, according to international consultants based on IMF/World Bank reports. Latin America´s contribution which represented 7.2 percent of GDP in 1980 dropped to 5.4 percent equivalent to 2.5 trillion dollars.

Copa Holdings, S.A. and its Copa Airlines and AeroRepublica operating subsidiaries released this week preliminary passenger traffic statistics for March 2006. For the month of March 2006, Copa Holdings´ system-wide passenger traffic increased 23.6 percent, while capacity increased 22.8 percent. System load factor for March 2006 reached 71.1 percent, an increase of 0.5 percent when compared to March 2005.

Sabre Airline Solutions has signed deals worth $2.5 million with Alitalia. The Italian flag carrier will use the airline technology provider´s revenue integrity products, as well as its consulting team, to stem millions of dollars of revenue leakage each year. Alitalia will use two components of the SabreSonic Passenger Solutions suite to cut down on revenue leakage.

The Inter American Development Bank, IDB, should write off Latin America poor countries debt because this will contribute to regional development and help reduce illegal migration to United States argued US Hispanic members of Congress. Fifteen Hispanic Democrats from Congress addressed a letter to US Secretary of the Treasury John Snow requesting he intercedes in favor of the highly indebted countries during the current IDB annual general assembly taking place in Belo Horizonte, Brazil.