The Brazilian trade balance posted a 112 million surplus in March with exports totaling 17.628 billion dollars and imports, 17.516 billion. It has been the worst result for March since 2001, when a 276.1 million deficit was recorded while the combined deficit for the first quarter of the year, 6.1bn dollars, is the worst result since records started being kept, in 1994.
President Dilma Rousseff remembered on Monday, 31 March, those who died or disappeared fighting for the return of democracy in Brazil on the fifitieth anniversary of the miltiary coup of 1964, which lasted until 1985 and had full political support from the United States, at the time under president Lyndon Johnson.
Mercosur expects to present a joint proposal regarding tariff reductions to the European Union during a meeting next June, according to Brazil's Minister of Development, Trade and Industry, Mauro Borges who apparently convinced a reluctant Argentina to join the group.
Brazil and Argentina signed a deal over the weekend that seeks to guarantee importers will have enough U.S. dollars to pay for exports, a move to increase trade between both nations that has been hit hard by a sharp depreciation of the Argentine peso.
Latin America and the Caribbean’s economy as a whole will grow by 3% this year and 3.3% in 2015 thanks to “improved economic conditions in the United States and Europe”, the Inter-American Development Bank said in a report released over the weekend.
Brazilian police backed by troops occupied a massive favela next to Rio de Janeiro's international airport without firing a shot to secure one of the city's most violent neighborhoods long run by drug dealers.
Support for Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff has faltered ahead of October's presidential election, a poll showed Thursday, although she remains a favorite to win a second term.
Brazil's economy expanded 2.3% in 2013, compared with growth of 1% the previous year, the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics, IBGE, said this week. The country's GDP for 2013 was estimated at 4.84 trillion Reais (some 2.05 trillion dollars), the IBGE said.
Former Brazilian president Fernando Henrique Cardoso said Congress should investigate a growing scandal surrounding the controversial 2006 purchase by oil giant Petrobras of a Texas refinery.
The lower house of Brazil’s Congress has approved legislation meant to ensure the privacy of Internet users and to guarantee what is called “Internet neutrality”, that all content be treated equally by carriers. But it dropped a demand that all data on Brazilians be saved within the country.