Ecuador inflation hits 8-year low in 2013

Ecuador's inflation rate fell to 2.7 percent in 2013, the lowest in the past eight years, the National Institute of Statistics and Censuses (INEC) announced Tuesday. That was below the government's target of 3.93 percent and continued the downtrend from 2012, INEC said. The inflation rate was 4.16 percent in 2012, and 5.41 percent the previous year. The rate for December was 0.2 percent, with food and non-alcoholic beverages accounting for 35.26 percent of the figure, followed by alcohol and tobacco with 22.02 percent. The coastal city of Guayaquil, with 0.5 percent inflation, had the highest monthly inflation, followed by Manta with 0.43 percent. INEC also reported average family income, with an average of 1.6 earners per family, reached 593.60 U.S. dollars per month last year Ecuador's economy has been dollar-based since 2000. Ecuadorian President Rafael Correa recently estimated the inflation rate would reach 3.2 percent in 2014, and the economy to grow 4.5 to 5.1 percent, which he described as "pretty good growth, higher than (other countries in) Latin America."