Tourism or Development?

UNESCO is scheduled to deliver its third opinion on establishing an airport in Rio Amarillo, Honduras in June, but Nelly Jerez, the Tourism Minister, isn't going to wait for that opinion for guidance. She announced yesterday that the government would go ahead and fast track the construction of an airport at Rio Amarillo to be finished in 2012. We've outlined elsewhere some of the politics of this decision.

Jerez announced that the Institute of Anthropology has approved the move. Jerez stated unequivocally

"It will not cause any damage to the ruins of Copan. Therefore we'll go ahead and build the Copan airport."

Really? We've already pointed out that both UNESCO, and several previous incarnations of the Instituto Hondureño de Antropología e Historia (IHAH) believe the aircraft engine noise would, over time, damage Copan if the airport was built at Rio Amarillo, but Jerez isn't waiting for the UNESCO report in June. Maybe that's because the previous two UNESCO reports strongly advised against building an airport in Rio Amarillo.

Jerez's announcement comes amidst UNESCO re-evaluating Honduras's treatment of another world heritage site in Honduras, the Biosphere of the Platano River. UNESCO is concerned about environmental degradation within the biosphere. It also has questions about possible effects on the biosphere of three recently approved dam projects on the Rio Patuca, or at least, that's how the Honduran government is spinning it.

Why is Jerez rushing this through? To support Tourism's initiative to bring tourists to Copan for the Maya "end of the world celebration" in 2012. Jerez, quoted in today's Tiempo, said

"The [Maya] prophecies of Copan and the end of the Maya calendar in December 2012 are opening the doors so that Europe will come to our country."

She plans spectacles with concerts and other performances both inside and outside the archaeological park.

So what are the costs and benefits of this decision, because any decision involves trade offs.

The benefit of building an airport in the region are tangible. Right now it takes 4 hours to drive from San Pedro Sula, with the nearest airport, to Copan Ruinas, the town where the ruin is located. This means thousands of tourists who visit Honduras cannot make the trip. These tourists are mostly cruise ship passengers whose tour includes a stop at the Bay Islands and Puerto Cortés, usually for 24 hours or less.

The propsed airport is designed to host turbo-prop 50 passenger planes similar to those in use today between Roatan and the mainland. Cruise ships range from small (50 passengers) to enormous (4000+ passengers). Carnival Cruise lines ships, which call at Roatan, all hold 2000 to 4000 passengers. If 10% of the passengers choose an option to fly to this new airport and tour Copan, this would require 4-8 round trip flights between Roatan and Copan daily. By comparison, there are currently only 3 round trip flights daily between San Pedro Sula and Roatan, none of them non-stop. Add the San Pedro Sula (to support local tourists and those docking in Puerto Cortés) and Tegucigalpa airports into the mix and you need tens of round trip flights daily in and out of this new airport.

No one has explained where the the airplanes and staff necessary to fly in and out of the new airport will come from. If you build it, they will come? There's been no public explanation of how the government will handle concessions to fly there, nor where the operations budget for the airport will come from, or how it will be operated. Is private industry going to fill the gap? Where are the committments?

Cruise ships don't dock every day. What will these private airlines do the other days, when there aren't sufficient passengers to financially justify all these flights? Or does the Honduran government envision this working on a charter model, with the cruise lines chartering planes to fly to the new airport, in which case the question becomes, where will the planes come from, since they don't currently exist in the country? Who will set up and finance these charter companies?

You see the problem? The business case for how this will operate financially, to pay for the airport its operations, and that of the air service companies, has not been made or discussed.

These, then are the advantages: greater access to the ruins of Copan than exists now and tourism related development around it. What is Jerez giving up with this choice?

Jerez is making the decision to not develop the second largest Maya city in Honduras for tourism, ever. While the argument advanced in favor of the airport is that the runway itself will not destroy any ruins, that's a red herring; the main acropolis of the Rio Amarillo site is less than 100 meters from the planned runway. Have I mentioned these planes are loud? Tourists won't come to a place where deafening noise is part of the experience many times a day. It would be irresponsible to excavate and consolidate the ruins since they would certainly degrade over time from vibration and be subject to the corrosive fumes of airplane exhaust. The Rio Amarillo ruins won't be developed. Tourists will have no reason to spend additional time in the region. Honduras forfeits those additional tourist dollars.

The Rio Amarillo location only serves tourism development at Copan, not the wider economic development of the the department of Copan. So Jerez is focusing just on tourism at Copan, which is her purview, rather than the wider economic development of Honduras. She says she would support building the La Concepción airport only if there's enough money to be found after building the Rio Amarillo airport. Perhaps she should take a larger view? As we pointed out in our earlier post, the La Concepcion location can contribute to both the tourism development of Copan and the wider economic development of the same region for about the same cost.

Santa Rosa de Copan is a business center in Honduras. It is one of two centers of Honduras's world famous cigar industry. Many world-class cigars are either made in this part of Honduras or made from tobacco grown in this part of Honduras. Yet there is no way for its businessmen to interact easily with people outside of Honduras. Companies are forced to establish offices and warehouses in San Pedro Sula, with its local airport, and more reliable communications and electricity, rather than keeping their money and jobs in the region. This keeps development centralized, focused on the larger cities of Honduras rather than spread out; it exacerbates the differences between the cities and the rural areas of Honduras.

The advantage of the La Concepcion location for an airport is that serves equally well the development of tourism to the ruins of Copan, being only 29 km away, and the economic development of the whole Department of Copan. Its a much more sustainable economic model because airport passenger traffic is increased with demand from both tourists and businessmen. In turn, that demand provides a more sustainable model for regular air service to the region, reducing risk for the private businesses that choose to operate such service.

Jerez's announcement is the triumph of politics and short term gains over the long term development in Honduras, and the continued overemphasis on the Maya ruins of Copan as a driver of development in the region, as documented so eloquently by Dr. Dario Euraque, among others.

Jerez is advocating an unbelievably short-sighted decision that only serves the political and economic interests of those focused exclusively on Copan Ruinas.

An airport should be built in the region; just not the one at Rio Amarillo.

Cultural Policy and the Coup: Interview on Honduras' Radio America

This Saturday, Radio América in Honduras will be broadcasting an interview with Yesenia Martínez, historian formerly employed by the Honduran Institute of Anthropology and History, dismissed in the aftermath of the coup d'etat.

The interview will be about historian Dario Euraque's book, El golpe de Estado, el patrimonio cultural y la identidad nacional [The coup d'etat, cultural patrimony, and national identity], lauded by historian Marvin Barahona.

Martinez writes that German Reyes, the journalist who invited her to appear Radio América, which is widely recognized as a pro-coup media outlet, was "brave" to invite her to discuss this highly charged topic.

In Honduras, you can find Radio América at 610 AM and 94.7 FM. On the web, at www.radioamerica.hn.

Tune in tomorrow, January 29, from 8:15 to 8:30 AM for the program.

Strange Energy Deals

Something puzzling is going on in the Honduran energy field. A single company, Minerco Resources, is snapping up the rights to approved hydroelectric and wind power properties, without any cash changing hands. And it's not like Minerco is an international giant.

How does a company that in April, 2010 had just $85 in the bank, little income, and over 331 million shares of stock outstanding, whose only source of income is by issuing shares of stock, come to acquire the rights to several hydroelectric and wind generation plants, all unbuilt, in Honduras?

Let me tell you the strange tale of connections leading from a car dealership in Canada to the heart of Honduras.

Minerco Resources incorporated in Nevada on June 21, 2007 as an oil and gas exploration company.

In its first SEC filing, the stock registration form S1, on Dec. 10, 2008, it lists its sole asset as interest in an unbuilt 6 mile long gas pipeline (PMD-Duke pipeline) in Morgan County, TN. which it acquired from its CEO and sole officer (CEO, CFO, chairman of board) Michael Too, when the founding CEO stepped down. At this time it registers 23 million shares of stock, and in subsequent filings indicates that it anticipates it needs $1.7 million over the next year to acquire properties, and doesn't know how it will raise the funds. Michael Too is a car salesperson in Ontario, Canada; the company's largest stockholder, Raymond Li, sells audio equipment in Richmond Hill, Ontario. Corporate Headquarters move into Michael Too's residence in Quebec City after the first year.

The company continues to loose money through the March 22, 2010 10Q filing and by now there are over 55 million shares of stock outstanding. The next day, Michael Too resigns all offices with the company, and as a director as well.

The same day, V. Scott Vanis was appointed President, CEO, CFO, and Chairman of the Board of directors. Vanis, based in Houston, Texas, previously ran a financial services company that provided financing and acquisition services to energy companies, especially in Latin America.

Vanis, Minerco tells us in their press release, served as a consultant to the Honduran government on energy reserves and projects. That prior service seems to have greatly influenced the direction Minerco subsequently took.

On May 27, 2010, Minerco announced an agreement to buy the rights to the Chiligatoro Hydroelectric project in the southern department of Intibuca in Honduras from ROTA Inversiones S.A., a Honduran renewable energy project fund run by Marco Rodriguez. The price: 18 million shares of Minerco's stock payable over 2 years, and some royalties on the net income from the plant itself, once it's constructed and producing power. The stock involved was issued as new shares. Minerco must raise $12 million by May 28, 2012 to retain the project. Otherwise it reverts to ROTA Inversiones. The following day, on May 28, 2010, Minerco Resources appointed Marco Rodriguez to its board of directors, per the terms of the Chiligatoro agreement.

A press release tells us that Mr. Rodriguez has served as an energy advisor to Honduran presidents since 1994, and served on the energy panel of the strategic planning and infrastructure panel (none of which I can verify with available resources).

In June of last year, Minerco stock experienced a price run-up, all the way to $0.90 a share from its more normal $0.03, before settling back down. What fueled the trading binge, that reached a volume of 56 million shares? Two things: the announcement on June 1 that the Honduran National Energy Council had approved the Chiligatoro Project, and a $50,000 advertising deal to hype the stock.

Included in the June 1 press release from Minerco was a claim that V. Scott Vanis and Marco Rodriguez had been invited to meet with Porfirio Lobo Sosa in the Casa Presidencial.

By August 2010 there were 333 million shares of stock outstanding, and about $20k of cash in hand. The company plan requires them to raise $13 million in cash to pay for costs related to Chiligatoro over the next two years. In the following months, they went about amassing cash aggressively, all apparently based on the promise of future profits from Honduran energy projects.

In July of 2010, an El Heraldo article mentioned Marco Rodriguez as head of operations of Minerco in Honduras. Also in July, Sam Messina joined as CFO consultant with a salary of $6,500 per month for 1 year.

Messina was concurrently Secretary, Treasurer and member of the board of another business, Alternative Energy Development Corporation, until he resigned in October of 2010, and apparently went to work full time for Minerco. That followed the September 2010 resignation of Rodriguez from the Minerco board.

Then on October 12, 2010, Minerco Resources borrowed $200,000 interest free, payable on demand, from yet another company, Mainland International, a Belize company whose address is that of an offshoring company, International Privacy Corporation.

On December 2, 2010, Minerco entered into an agreement with Centurion Private Equity LLC to buy up to $5 million of Minerco stock over two years. This stock for cash swap enabled Minerco to access up to $300,000 at a time, up to $5 million total to finance its ongoing business.

On December 7, 2010, Minerco announced to shareholders that the board had adopted a policy that allowed for the issuance of more stock, or a reverse stock split, or the creation of preferred stock shares at the discretion of the directors. They control approximately 58 percent of the outstanding stock and so had the required votes and did not need to ask other shareholders their opinion.

On December 16, 2010, Sam Messina was appointed CFO for five years and given 30 million newly issued shares of common stock (not options), with the proviso that if the company went bankrupt or he leaves in the next two years, he has to return a portion of these shares.

On December 23, Minerco filed a new form S1 with the SEC to sell 60 million shares of common stock for Centurion Private Equity, returning about $450,000 in cash to Centurion. There are now 412 million shares issued.

On January 5, 2011, Minerco purchased all of the interests of Energetica de Occidente S.A. de C.V in the Iscan hydroelectric project (in Guata, Olancho) in exchange for 1 million shares of Minerco stock, and on the condition that Minerco raises $8.5 million within 36 months. Energetica will be paid a royalty on the adjusted gross revenues of the plant, once built and operating.

On January 11, 2011, Minerco hired V. Scott Vanis as CEO for 5 years at $180K salary with bonus clauses increasing his salary if revenues reach certain targets. He was granted 10 million shares of the new, Class A preferred stock. The company changed its articles of incorporation to authorize the issuance of up to 1 billion shares of common stock, and 25 million shares of Class A preferred stock.

On January 13, Minerco announced it had a letter of intent to acquire 30% of the interests of Sesecapa Energy Company in the Rio Frio hydroelectric project (Santa Fe, Ocotepeque). The company also acquired the ability to invest in two subsequent stages of the project. The Rio Frio project is expected to begin producing power in 2012. No terms have been announced yet.

On January 18, the company bought the interests of Energía Renovable Hondureñas S.A in the Sayab Wind Project (San Marcos, Choluteca), a 100 megawatt wind generation plant for 1 million shares of Minerco Resources common stock and interest payments on the adjusted gross income when the plant begins production. In turn, Minerco must raise $10 million in the next 18 months. A similar project by Mesoamerica Energy, financed by the BCIE, is expected to cost $250 million to construct.

What do all these deals mean?

Minerco Resources must raise a total of $22 million by June of 2012, all without a penny of income other than through issuing more shares of stock.

Under current contracts it must raise a further $8.5 million by 2014 by which time, only the Rio Frio project, with the possibility to provide up to $200,00 per year in income, will be producing power. If it fails to raise the funds, all of these projects revert to the previous owners.

Clearly, energy generation in Honduras must have a lot of potential. How else could it convert the promise of a trickle of income into such a river of investment?

Everyone Has Internet Access, Right?

The División Ejecutivo de Ingresos (DEI), sort of the Honduran IRS, thinks everyone in Honduras has internet access; at least, that's the only conclusion one can come to upon finding that in order to obtain the form necessary to buy or sell a car, or get different license plates, one must download and print it from their website.

The head of the modernization project at the DEI, Juan Carlos Galindo, said that the move to make forms only available on the Internet is part of the DEI's modernization project begun under the Lobo Sosa administration.

Juan Carlos Galindo said that the DEI has put several forms up on the website, among them the DEI-410 and DEI-490.

"The taxpayer who wishes to request or make a link to their numeric RTN only has to download the form from the institutional web page wwww.dei.gob.hn."

said Galindo.

So why did the DEI make this move? In order to download the form, you must provide your name and RTN (taxpayer ID) in order for them to pre-generate a custom identifying number of the form. In other words, the form generated is not generic, it's unique, and the number on it has your taxpayer ID number (RTN) embedded in it. So the motivation is new business logic, no doubt a new database and tracking system. Too bad it's ill conceived and impractical for all but the most modern world countries.

While the move to make government forms available on the Internet is laudable, the decision to make that the only way to access them is dumb. In the United States, with much greater access to the Internet, the IRS still has to print paper forms and make them available at its offices. We are all grateful that we can download many of them as well, but they are, none the less, completely generic forms. In Honduras, where Internet access is more restricted (about 5% of the population), this move is sheer stupidity.

But government bureaucracies never admit their mistakes. This system is in place and likely cannot be changed. If that's the case, the DEI should be required to make computers and printers available to the public in their offices, like they must do under the Transparency laws anyhow, for taxpayers to print the forms, or do the smart thing and go back to generic paper forms. This solution is too clever for Honduras or even the United States, where not everyone has Internet access.

"Explosive, but no longer set in stone"

That's how Upside Down World subtitled a post by Rodolfo Pastor Fasquelle on the effects and reception of recent action by the Honduran Congress.

As we wrote in a previous post, the Honduran Congress passed a law that, once ratified by being passed by the next session of Congress, explicitly makes it legal to hold public referenda on constitutional reform. We wrote that what the Honduran congress did

is in no way a substitute for what the Zelaya government was proposing, and what the Frente de Resistencia has continued to advocate. Both the Zelaya government and the Frente have pursued completely revisiting the constitution through a participatory forum, an assembly, not [just] via amendment by the Congress, which these bodies argue is not truly representative of the will of the Honduran people or its broader interests and needs.

In a separate post, we pointed out the hypocrisy involved, since merely talking about asking the populace if they wanted to be asked their opinion about constitutional reform was equated, after the coup d'etat, to advocating for changes to the "set in stone" articles of the constitution, while this new legislative move was defended from the same charges.

But only an insider to Honduran politics like Pastor Fasquelle could provide a clear analysis of who wins, who loses, and the opportunities that this legislative move provides.

Pastor Fasquelle notes that Lobo Sosa had spoken in favor of constitutional reform before the coup. Lobo Sosa has made statements in the same vein since his election as president. So from that perspective, his advocacy for this is not entirely surprising, and in the present situation, it is politically expedient.

As Pastor Fasquelle writes

It should also be obvious at this stage that the National Party believes it has created the superficial changes necessary to prevent real, profound change from taking place.

This is the side of the argument that sees the congressional action as an attempt to preempt real constitutional change emerging from the will of the people.

But Pastor Fasquelle thinks that the political establishment has unleashed more than it intended:

A critical analysis of the amendment, in context, needs to take into account the dangers and should recognize its opportunistic and partisan intent. At the same time it must also recognize there has been an opening and that opportunism has created an actual opportunity.

He points to the endorsement by former President Zelaya of the action by the Honduran Congress as part of his evidence that the unintended consequences may be broader than the intended ones:

The amendment has changed the rules, and opened possibilities for the Resistance, despite the intentions of its authors.

Writing as a member-- not a spokesman-- of the Resistance, Pastor Fasquelle notes the FNRP

needs no official recognition to call for a referendum for a Constituent Assembly and to demand the repeal of amnesty for human rights violators on the day the law is officially passed. And soon the Congress may be facing an even bigger challenge: a drive to collect the one hundred thousand signatures needed to call a referendum on the abolition of the Armed Forces has already been announced.

This is where the experience that the Resistance gained in mobilizing a drive for signatures on a petition for a constitutional assembly might be seen, in retrospect, as a more significant form of political action than forming a conventional political party would have been.

Not that Hondurans can expect that the consequences of this legislation will unroll without additional drama. The right-wing Unión Civica Democratica has voiced fierce opposition to the measure, and has every possibility of being more influential in Washington than any of the other positions Pastor Fasquelle outlines, because as he notes the UCD

also has increased its presence in Washington, where it has now ever more powerful congressional allies, to pressure the Obama Administration against what its members believe to be an action as criminal as they claimed Zelaya’s poll to be.

US policy toward Honduras has hardly been coherent or progressive even before the elevation of a more right wing House of Representatives brought about by the 2010 elections. The indications that House members will politick on an overly simplified storyline of right wing nightmares are already clear. How will the recent action of the Honduran Congress that has been promoted by the US right as guarantors of constitutional integrity factor into this going forward?

Thanks to Quotha for reposting Pastor Fasquelle's published essay and ensuring it came to our attention quickly.

Lobo's Model Cities

Yesterday Porfirio Lobo Sosa gave a long press conference about model cities and his unqualified support for the idea. From it, it's clear that Honduras will go ahead with the plan, with the National Congress scheduled to hold the first debate on legislation today. It's been fast-tracked, though it will take until 2012 to make all the constitutional changes that are needed to allow model cities. Nonetheless, it's interesting to hear what Lobo Sosa thinks about the idea, and how he conceives of the implementation.

He's thinking of areas of about 33 square kilometers, not the 1000 square kilometers that Romer calls for. He sees nothing wrong with ceding sovereignty over such an area for 80 or more years to either foreign governments or national or international businesses while they go about their business. He said:

"This is nothing for Honduras, above all it will be an unpopulated place not appropriate for agriculture, where now we have nothing and afterwards we will have factories, schools, secondary schools, hospitals, like in the cities of more developed countries."

But El Heraldo reports that Lobo Sosa said that if any campesino or land owner doesn't want to sell his or her land, that

"[they'll] rent their land, that means profits, there's nothing pre-negotiated, first the law, first the rules, and after that, we'll see."

which would indicate these are not unpopulated places. This was clear from another statement of his,

"If there are land holders there, they'll have the option to sell their land, or rent it."

but presumably not withhold it!

The President will have veto power over who administers the model cities.

The rush is to get it approved in this Congressional session, which ends this week, because if not, they won't finish all the approvals until the 2012 session, because of all the constitutional changes that are required. Lobo Sosa wants this done during his administration.

Lobo Sosa indicated the government was looking at Ocotepeque, Trujillo, the Agalta valley, and near the port of Amapala on the Pacific coast, as possible locations for a model city. He projects they will provide up to 3 million new jobs, all of which, Lobo Sosa assures, will go to Hondurans.

Lets see. 33 square km. is about 13 square miles, or smaller than Whittier, California, population 83,000 and exactly the size of the affluent Calabasas, California, population 22,000. Industry, California, is an industrial city of about 12 square miles, with 2500 companies generating about 80,000 jobs but it only has 777 residents.

Hong Kong has a population density of about 6400 people per square km. At that density, a model city of 33 square km. in Honduras would have about 211,000 residents.

Hong Kong is a bad success story for Romer to have chosen. Not only does he ignore the historical contingencies of his example, but he ignores the historically poor distribution of income there as well, the worst in Asia.

Who benefits in Hong Kong? The gini index measures how income is distributed across households from the poorest to the richest. To the extent that that curve differs from a straight line, income distribution is skewed. Values range between 0 and 1. The lower the number, the more evenly income is distributed. The closer the value is to 1, the more income is concentrated into fewer and fewer families.

The gini index of Hong Kong was .53 in 2008, while Honduras had a gini index of .56 in 2010. That means Hong Kong and Honduras already have similar income distributions, with lots of poor people and a few wealthy households. Would you expect something different in a model city? Why?

This income distribution is what you would expect from little regulation of capitalism. Most European countries have values in the range .2 to .3, while the US has a gini index of .45. The rich get richer, the poor stay poor, and the middle class gets poorer as capitalism is regulated less.

So tell me again how model cities will be good for Honduras?

Update: The legislation was indeed fast-tracked, and has passed. Other blogs are now paying some attention as well. This has led to Romer himself correcting Honduran press reports: Lobo Sosa either said or should have said that these would be 33 km on a size, and thus 1000 km. We would note that the decreto that was passed has nothing about proposed size. We stand by our opinion that this is a bad idea that makes no sense and note that using real people's lives as an abstract experiment should be considered unethical.

Bad Model Cities

Under the rubric of "Model Cities" the Lobo Sosa administration presented a law to Congress which will give the government the right to expropriate any contiguous region of land for the use of "Special Administrative Regions" which will be owned in full by the government, but have their own fully autonomous court system, not answerable to the Supreme Court. This is based on Stanford economist Paul Romer's ideas about "Charter Cities".

Romer's idea of Charter Cities, documented here and here, was advanced by him as a development initiative for poor countries. His specific analog is Hong Kong, which he says brought so much good to China. Romer seems to ignore the fact that it brought no good to China for 156 years, from 1839 until 1997 when it was removed from its status as a British colony and merged, fully formed and developed, as a part of China. It was only when integrated into modern China that it brought any good to the country.

According to La Tribuna's description, these Special Administrative Regions pretty closely model what Romer is suggesting. A large region of land (Romer recommends 1000 square km.) would be allocated by the Honduran government, with a charter set by the National Congress. Mind you, Romer sets the target developed population at 10 million, more than the entire population of Honduras. The Charter outlines the basic set of rules under which the city will begin to operate. It is, however, not answerable to Honduran law or the Honduran constitution and may establish, within the guidelines of its charter, any set of laws it wishes using the form of government specified in the charter (eg, it need not be representative of the population in any way).

As Romer sees it, investors will fund these charter cities by setting up services and collecting fees for them (water, sewer, electricity, etc.). Land title either remains with the national government, which then benefits from the rents on the lands, or is transferred to the development authority, which then finances itself by leasing (not selling) land to developers.

Romer says these are not gated communities for the rich. He sees this as the natural evolution of the maquila, with the first residents being maquila workers assembling garments and making toys, people with little formal education. He holds the mistaken belief that such workers today already can afford city services (electricity, water, sewer) and rents on their existing salaries. Everyone would have to rent, in Special Administrative Regions. No one would own their own residence.

These regions are sort of like today's Export Processing Zones that house the maquilas, except that they will have residents who are no longer full Honduran citizens, governed instead by the laws and rules set up by the local administration to administer these areas. There is no requirement for worker participation in the local government, for example. It harkens back to the banana company towns, with the potential for all the benefits and worker abuses, except that these would be industrial rather than agricultural workers.

Why is this idea attractive to the Honduran government? It might be the claimed potential for development of the host country, although Romer basically glosses over that part in his descriptions; but I think it specifically is attractive to the Honduran government because such zones are claimed to attract the people who currently leave the country to pursue social and economic opportunities in other countries. It is said to bring home all the migrants who currently enter the US illegally after traversing Guatemala and Mexico and being victimized by criminals in those countries.

Romer came to Honduras on January 3 and presented the idea of constructing a charter city in Trujillo to the BCIE, Juan Orlando Hernández, and Porfirio Lobo Sosa. Romer is interested in setting up and financing a demonstration project in Honduras if the government will only turn over the land to him for a few years. Juan Orlando Hernandez said of the pilot

"There are many countries that are fighting to be the site of this project. Honduras has all the possibilities to do it and the government, we are interested in doing it to benefit all the population."

It's clear that this law was fast-tracked after Romer's visit. Perhaps the government should, as Mario Argueta noted in an editorial in El Heraldo, remember previous development attempts that gave concessions to foreigners. They all failed, and were bad for Honduras.

Are Special Administrative Regions Lobo Sosa's solution to the Bajo Aguan problem?