Argentina

• Tuesday, January 2nd 2007 - 20:00 UTC

  Argentine stock market among top ten in 2006

  

  Argentina's stock market ended 2006 with an unprecedented yearly average increase of 35 percent which placed it among the world's top ten performers, the Argentine Institute for Capital Markets (IAMC, in its Spanish acronym), said in a report. Several other world markets also reached record highs.

• Tuesday, January 2nd 2007 - 20:00 UTC

  Summer hake ban in common fishing zone

  

  The Maritime Front Joint Technical Commission (CTMFM) has set the summer ban for common hake (Merluccius hubbsi) in the common fishing zone (CFZ) shared by Argentina and Uruguay, between 1 January and 31 march 2007.

• Monday, January 1st 2007 - 20:00 UTC

  Argentina announces 2.3-billion-dollar fuel refinery project

  

  In an effort to offset expected shortages in diesel fuel supplies, the Argentine government has announced a project to build a refinery that will require an about 2.3-billion-dollar investment which will be mainly made by some 30 private oil companies, with the exception of Royal/Dutch Shell, which is engaged in a dispute with the administration.

• Monday, January 1st 2007 - 20:00 UTC

  Tobacco advertising banned in Buenos Aires City

  

  Public advertising of tobacco in Buenos Aires City has been banned as from the first day of 2007, under municipal law 1799 passed in late 2005, amid a drive to curb smoking-related illnesses in Argentina that according the national government kill 40,000 people a year.

• Saturday, December 30th 2006 - 20:00 UTC

  Court ruling fairly reasonable, law experts say

  While the government praised it as reinstating certainty, some savers saw it as the end of a nightmare and banks continue mum and mulling its possible implications, law experts said that the Supreme Court ruling that ordered banks on Wednesday to reimburse savers in pesos dollar deposits frozen during Argentina's 2001 economic debacle, was fairly reasonable.

• Friday, December 29th 2006 - 20:00 UTC

  South Africa's Standard Bank Argentine deal an attention call for competitors

  

  The planned purchase by Standard Bank – South Africa's largest private bank by assets — of most of US' Bank of America Corp.'s BankBoston Argentina assets, marks the first large investment by a foreign player in the sector since Argentina's 2001-2002 economic meltdown, and an attention call for competitors, banking sources told MercoPress.

• Friday, December 29th 2006 - 20:00 UTC

  Argentine clue witness in human rights trial reappears

  

  Minutes after Argentine President Nestor Kirchner ended a national address saying he will not be blackmailed by paramilitary groups that allegedly have kidnapped clue witnesses in human rights trials, one of them appeared safe and sound.

• Thursday, December 28th 2006 - 20:00 UTC

  Argentine banks must return 2001/02 frozen deposits

  Five years later and in a long-awaited ruling, the Argentine Supreme Court ordered local banks to reimburse in full their customers savings that were frozen during the economic crisis of 2001/02, when Argentina also defaulted on its foreign debt.

• Wednesday, December 27th 2006 - 20:00 UTC

  Argentine fisheries exports 510.000 tons in ten months

  Argentine fisheries exports (sea and fluvial; fresh and processed) during the first ten months of 2006 totaled 510.223 tons representing over a billion US dollars, according to the latest report from Senasa, Agro-food Health and Quality Service

• Tuesday, December 26th 2006 - 20:00 UTC

  Argentina's international reserves set to reach 43 billion

  

  Argentina's Central Bank international reserves are set to reach 43 billion US dollars by the end of next year according to estimates from the private BBVA Banco Francés, released Tuesday in Buenos Aires.