The economy of urban hubs stand for over fifty percent of Gross Domestic Products (GDP) worldwide, even though in the case of Latin American and Caribbean nations that figure could soar to just about 80 percent. That’s the conclusion of a recent report issued in Geneva by the United Nations Program for Human Settlements (UN-Habitat) and that labels Mexico as a good case in point. The Aztec nation’s ten biggest cities –comprising only a third of the entire population- generate 62 percent of the country’s GDP.

Canada is importing an increasingly larger amount of goods from South America, Central America, Mexico and the Caribbean, according to Statistics Canada, a state-run agency. Trade flow between Canada and South American countries has grown in double digits over the past months, especially with Brazil, Chile and Venezuela.

World Bank officials informed this week the institution’s intention to lend Peru $5 million to help authorities there protect the ruins of Machu Picchu and the Incas’ Sacred Valley, the country’s two best-known cultural heritage sites. Each day, as many as two thousand people visit Machu Picchu, the Inca citadel perched atop the Peruvian Andes. That figure has been growing at a 6 percent annual rate, local tourism authorities say.

The cash flow going into Venezuela´s Tourism Fund could soar to nearly $9.4 billion in 2005, according to estimates reckoned by Jaime Padron, president of the Autonomous Institute of the National Fund for Tourism Promotion and Training (INATUR is the acronym in Spanish). The figure is based on a successful promotional campaign launched by the administration of President Hugo Chavez in an effort to bring the issue home among officials and the general public, sources close to the institute told local news agency Venpres.

Mexico is ready to shell out $2 billion into the local tourist industry all through this year, up a whopping 39 percent from 2003, said John McCarthy, chief of the country´s National Tourism Fund. In the course of a meeting that gathered some of the Aztec nation´s top travel companies, Mr. McCarthy informed Mexico will reach the 20-million-tourist milestone by the end of the ongoing year. "At the end of the day," he added, "the country will be putting $11 billion into its coffers."

Brazil is badly needing cash to upgrade roads, railroads and seaports in the face of an export bonanza that´s definitely making the nation´s economy pick up some steam, local officials and entrepreneurs said over the weekend. Infrastructure for transporting and warehousing crops and minerals to be shipped overseas is currently working at full throttle across the South American nation.