Superior Council for Private Enterprise
The Superior Council for Private Enterprise is a leading business chamber in Nicaragua. As of April 2018, its president is José Adán Aguerri.
COSEP is/was the main organization of Nicaraguan big business, and at least in the late 20th century was said to be composed of prosperous families from the Pacific coast cities, who dominated commerce and banking.
During the Sandinista revolution, COSEP opposed the Sandinistas’ economic policies. Later, in 1990 when the candidate of the National Opposition Union, Violeta Barrios de Chamorro, defeated Sandanista Daniel Ortega for president, COSEP was one of the alliance of 14 opposition groups that made up UNO.
But when the more pragmatic Ortega was elected president, COSEP worked in cooperation with him. The arrangement is said to have led to Nicaragua having "the fastest-growing economy in Central America" and being a "poster child for foreign investment and citizen security in a region known for gangs and unrest". This ended in April 2018 when Ortega's unpopular decree to "unilaterally overhaul the social-security tax system" broke his arrangement with COSEP,.
