A close advisor to President Cristina Fernandez lawmaker Carlos Kunkel defended the possibility of amendments to the 1994 Argentine constitution but cautioned that “no formal decision about it has been made on a congressional or party level.”
The Argentine government reacted strongly to Thursday’s massive demonstrations across the country and challenged them to organize in a political party and run for election. However the mayor of the city of Buenos Aires said the protests filled him with “pride” and called on the people to keep confronting the government.
Argentina pledges to export an extra 2.75 million tons of corn from its 2011-12 harvest to a total of 16.45 million tons helping to ease tight international markets after this summer's drought in the US damaged crops there and fuelled fears of a food crisis.
Argentina's recently nationalized oil and gas producer YPF SA and the US Chevron Corporation have signed a memorandum of understanding to explore for unconventional energy in Vaca Muerta, in the Patagonian province of Neuquen.
A benchmark measure of Argentina's money supply rose 34.6% on the year in August, according to the central bank. In its monthly monetary report published late Thursday, the Central Bank of Argentina said its M2 measure of money supply averaged 403.93 billion Argentine pesos (86.6 billion dollars) last month.
Uruguay’s attempt to auction the bankrupt national airline Pluna aircraft collapsed because none of the groups that showed an initial interest turned up arguing that the 136 million dollars for the seven Bombardier CRJ900 NextGen was “not attractive” and considered the whole business deal “non viable”.
Appealing to social networks thousands of Argentines Thursday evening took to the streets of the country’s major cities to protest some of the latest measures from the government of President Cristina Fernandez including the re-re-election plans and the increasing restrictions to the purchase of dollars.
Brazil rolled out additional stimulus measures to bolster its sluggish economy on Thursday, extending tax breaks to more than two dozen industries and reducing the cost of acquiring capital goods in a bid to help struggling local businesses.
Argentina’s inflation advanced 0.9% in August and 6.8% in the first eight months of the year according to the controversial official stats office Indec. Whole sale prices were up 1% over July and the construction cost increased 1.3%.
The Argentine central bank has informally “suggested” the banking system to limit the advances (in dollars) of credit card holders overseas, reports the Buenos Aires financial press. This is seen as another tightening of the dollar clamp imposed by the administration of President Cristina Fernandez to retain much needed foreign currency.