Browse Data and Analysis

FAS/Managua projects MY 2025/26 sugar production to reach 840,000 metric tons, up ten percent from MY 2024/25, assuming a more balanced rainy season and an increase in sugarcane plantations.

Sugar production in El Salvador is forecast to reach 740,000 metric tons (MT) in marketing year (MY) 2025/26, with MY 2024/25 estimates revised down to 706,000 MT.

This report highlights the food processing industry, its drivers, key players, and market landscape in the Caribbean Basin. The region relies heavily on imports, and the United States is the largest supplier of food ingredients.

The United States is a major trading partner with the Dominican Republic (DR). The DR is the largest economy in the Caribbean and the seventh-largest economy in Latin America. Since the Dominican Republic-Central America Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA-DR) went into effect for the DR in 2007, U.S. agricultural exports to the DR have increased from $1 billion in 2007 to $2 billion in 2024.

The Caribbean Basin region has a robust and competitive hotel/restaurant/institutional (HRI) sector. Tourism is a major economic driver, accounting for nearly 9 million visitors in 2023, almost 50 percent of which arrived from the United States...

By the end of 2023, El Salvador's hotel and restaurant sectors showed strong growth, reflecting the full recovery of its tourism industry. According to the latest Euromonitor data, Salvadorans spent $2.6 billion in the hotels and catering sector in 2023.

Record-high remittances continue to boost consumer spending in 2024. U.S. agricultural exports to Nicaragua through September 2024 are up four percent compared to the same period in 2023.

In June 2024, the Nicaraguan Institute of Agricultural Protection and Health (IPSA) issued an executive resolution to strengthen the risk mitigation measures for the monitoring and testing of GE grains.

On October 1, 2019, El Salvador agreed to harmonize the biosafety technical regulation for “modified living organisms” for agricultural use with Guatemala and Honduras and designated the Ministry of Agriculture as the National Competent Authority to provide authorizations and keep registries related to biotechnology.

Access to the benefits of modern agricultural biotechnology in the Caribbean Basin remains stifled by the unfinished work of implementing a science-based, risk-management approach to regulate its use.

This report provides examples of the significant export certificates and other documents required by the government of El Salvador for U.S. exports of food and agricultural products.

Since August 7, 2024, the Superintendence for Sanitary Regulation has been responsible for food and beverage product registration in El Salvador.