Madagascar Development

Puerto Rico’s revenue collections for the first month of the fiscal year came in above budgeted estimates, a positive start after receipts came in below the island’s projections last year. The commonwealth’s general fund revenue in July totaled $665.1 million, $7.4 million more than expected, with tax receipts on foreign manufacturers and business coming in better than anticipated, Treasury Secretary Juan Zaragoza said in a statement Monday. Revenue collections for July were $38.6 million more than a year earlier. July revenue from sales and use taxes totaled $209.5 million, with $119.7 million going to repay sales-tax bonds, called Cofinas by their Spanish acronym, and about $90 million going to the general fund, according to Zaragoza. Puerto Rico collected  $9.7 billion  of general-fund revenue in fiscal 2016, $117 million below budgeted estimates, as individual and corporate tax receipts lagged projections. Michelle Kaske Puerto Rico’s July Revenue Comes in $7.4 ...

One of the oddities about Puerto Rico is that it falls under the jurisdiction of the New York Federal Reserve. And this week, the New York Fed, which flagged some of Puerto Rico's debt problems back in 2012, has begun publishing a series of blog posts about what's ailing the  debt-laden commonwealth  -- and what the island needs to do to get its economy back on its feet. The New York Fed kicked off its Liberty Street Economics blogs by declaring that "ultimately, achieving fiscal sustainability depends greatly on reinvigorating economic growth, which has been unsatisfactory in Puerto Rico in the past decade." It said that stronger growth would boost tax revenues, providing more room to reduce the deficit while maintaining essential public services, and gradually bend the debt-to-GDP trajectory in a more favorable direction." Still to come: How to do that. For now, members of Congress and many creditors of Puerto Rico are calling for curbs on government spend...

Puerto Ricans have been hit with another increase in electric bills as the U.S. territory's power company struggles to stay afloat. The heavily indebted Electric Power Authority says the increase implemented on Monday will generate some $94 million this fiscal year. Clients on average will see a $6 monthly increase in bills, which already average twice those on the U.S. mainland and have been blamed for suppressing economic development. Puerto Rico also has seen an increase in blackouts blamed on outdated infrastructure that the cash-strapped company has struggled to replace. Puerto Rico hit with new power bill increase amid crisis

Uber’s prolonged land war in China is over: Uber’s China unit will merge with competitor Didi Chuxing, ending a fierce multi-billion-dollar battle for the largest ridesharing market in the world. As part of the deal, Uber and its Chinese investors will reportedly receive 20% of the merged company, newly valued at $35 billion. Meanwhile, Didi will invest $1 billion in Uber at a $68 billion valuation. The deal ends months of speculation as to whether the two companies might come to deal or continue to bleed each other dry.  Bloomberg  first reported the news and sources confirmed the details to FORBES. Both Uber and Didi have shown a remarkable ability to raise capital. Uber recently raised $3.5 billion from Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund, capping off a  $5.5 billion round , while Didi announced a  $7.3 billion round , including debt and a surprise  $1 billion investment from American computing giant  Apple . Both companies were...

QUEBRADILLAS, P.R. — Far from the bustle of the capital, San Juan, in places where time walks slowly, jobs are scarce and colonial history dates to the era of pirates, some of Puerto Rico’s most powerful figures — municipal mayors — spend their days obliging, cajoling and demanding. Townspeople line up at their doors to plead for help: Abuela died, and no one can pay her funeral expenses. Can you help? Yes. The wood in my house is rotting. Can you help? Yes. The town needs another baseball field. Can you help? Yes. My cousin needs a job — can you hire her? Let me see what I can do. It is a ritual as familiar to the 78 mayors who oversee Puerto Rico’s 78 large and small  municipios , or municipalities — a few no bigger than several square miles — as the nighttime trill of the coquí frogs and the relief of summer downpours. But with Puerto Rico carrying $72 billion in debt after decades of borrowing and overspending , and an independent, federally appointed  control boa...

A group of Senate liberals is pushing the White House and congressional leadership to appoint Puerto Rican representatives to an oversight board charged with handling the island’s $72 billion debt crisis.  Sens.  Bernie Sanders  (I-Vt),  Bob Menendez  (D-N.J.), Cory Booker (D-N.J.) and  Jeff Merkley  (D-Ore.) said the seven-person oversight board established by a bill passed last week should only include people with primary residences in Puerto Rico. “The board will hold unprecedented power over the fiscal management and general governance of the island,” wrote the senators in two letters sent Thursday: one to President Obama and another to Speaker  Paul Ryan  (R-Wis.), House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), Senate Majority Leader  Mitch McConnell  (R-Ky.) and Senate Minority Leader  Harry Reid  (D-Nev.). “The Puerto Rican people deserve this most basic respect,” the senators wrote. The oversight board has ...

Puerto Rico Government Development Bank President Melba Acosta will leave the bank at the end of July as President Barack Obama forms a control board to oversee the island’s finances. The Government Development Bank has been running out of cash and defaulted in May on $370 million due to bondholders. It has been operating under an emergency period, which allows withdrawals only for public health and safety programs. The bank served for years as overseer of the island’s finances until Governor Alejandro Garcia Padilla in April appointed Victor Suarez, Puerto Rico’s Secretary of State, to serve as the commonwealth’s fiscal agent. Acosta has served as the GDB’s president since October 2014. Garcia Padilla accepted Acosta’s resignation Thursday, the governor said in a statement. Her last day at the bank will be July 31. Obama has until Sept. 15 to create a seven-member control board that will monitor Puerto Rico’s budgets and oversee any restructuring to reduce the island’s $70 bi...

Three prominent New Yorkers are among those being considered for a spot on the federal Puerto Rico fiscal control board, the Daily News has learned. The U.S. Senate on Wednesday gave final congressional approval to legislation to create a board to help the financially beleaguered Puerto Rico restructure its $72 billion debt and move forward. Obama signed the legislation Thursday. He will pick the members, some of whom will come from lists provided by congressional leaders. Former Gov. George Pataki, ex-Lt. Gov. Richard Ravitch, and business turnaround expert and potential 2018 gubernatorial candidate Harry Wilson are among the names under consideration for the seven-member board, sources say. Pataki owns property in Puerto Rico while Ravitch is crediting with helping with the New York City financial bailout in the 1970s. Wilson, who like Pataki is a Republican, in 2009 helped with the restructuring of General Motors as part of a federal automotive task force created by Presi...

Porfirio Guerrero has grown increasingly frustrated as a decade-long recession has sapped business from his tailor shop in the Puerto Rican capital. He now feels the only way for the island to recover is to become a full-fledged part of the United States, a sentiment that is gaining force in the territory. Puerto Ricans have been divided for decades on whether to remain a semi-autonomous commonwealth, push for statehood or break away entirely from the United States. The island's economic crisis — including a $70 billion debt and looming default — have pushed many like Guerrero toward statehood. "Can't you see the devastation around here?" he says, gesturing at struggling and shuttered shops that make up the once thriving business district of Rio Piedras. "It would depress anyone. We need statehood." That feeling has been reinforced by Congress' approval on Wednesday of a measure meant to help the island out of its deep economic malaise. The bill, ...