Daily coverage from across the country, written for the expat community
Results for “economics”Clear
Quito woke up without bus service on May 5 as operators cut hours to protest the end of diesel subsidies. The city handles 2 million transit trips daily, and 1.5 million of them depend on these buses.
Pizza Hut Ecuador has new ownership. In a market where over 706,000 pizzas moved through PedidosYa in 2025 alone, the competitive landscape looks meaningfully different than it does in the U.S. Here's who's actually on the board.
WTI crude oil tumbled more than 15% to $95/barrel on April 8 after Trump postponed his Iran infrastructure strike threat, then rebounded 7.3% to $101.28 on April 9. For Ecuador — both an oil exporter and a country where consumers pay market fuel prices — this volatility cuts both ways.
WTI crude surged past $100/barrel in early April, driven by the Middle East conflict and Strait of Hormuz disruption. For Ecuador, it's a double-edged sword: oil exports bring in more revenue, but the fuel band system passes the pain directly to consumers at the pump.
Barcelona SC opens its Copa Libertadores Group D campaign against Brazilian side Cruzeiro at the Estadio Monumental on Tuesday. BSC enters on a high after a 2-0 win over Liga de Quito, while Cruzeiro is struggling. The match carries significant economic implications for Guayaquil.
Police in Guayaquil dismantled a massive phone theft operation involving 25,000 stolen devices valued at over $3 million. Authorities recovered approximately 30% of the phones through device tracking. The scale reveals how organized phone theft has become -- and why basic security practices matter for every resident.
January 2026 crude production hit 466,400 bbl/d, down 1.8% year-over-year and 13% below a decade ago. Illegal pipeline taps surged from 36 in 2022 to 770 in 2024, costing $100 million annually. Ecuador needs 550,000 bbl/d just to cover basic fiscal needs.
The two-week nightly curfew across four coastal provinces ends March 30, concluding the largest single anti-narcotics mobilization in South American history. 75,000 soldiers and police were deployed with U.S. Reaper drone support and FBI intelligence.
The International Monetary Fund reports Ecuador is 'recovering much faster than anticipated' from the devastating 2024 blackout crisis. Inflation is forecast at just 1.5% for 2026 — among the lowest in Latin America — though housing costs spiked 16.97%.
Ecuador’s annual inflation rate hit a 20-month high in January 2026, driven almost entirely by a 20.79% spike in housing and utility costs after the government ended electricity and diesel subsidies. Food prices are rising too — plantains have roughly doubled, and the basic family basket now costs $822 a month.
Washington and Quito have 'substantially concluded' negotiations on a reciprocal trade agreement set to be signed in coming weeks. But Ecuador's biggest non-oil export to the U.S. — shrimp worth $2 billion a year — may not get the tariff relief the industry needs to survive.
Three months after launch, Latin America's highest-altitude metro is beating ridership projections by 22%. Traffic on parallel routes is measurably declining. Here's what the numbers show.
