Australian beef and veal export values in 2012 increased 2% year-on-year, reaching 4.77 billion dollars. While beef and veal export volumes during 2012 notched a record, values were short of the equivalent feat, influenced by a greater proportion of exports made up of frozen product and the high Australian dollar.
The Rosario Chamber of Commerce estimates Argentina’s soy production at 48 million tons, which is 9.4% below the 2012/13 harvest estimate of January, 53 million tons, mainly because of a prolonged drought which extended from early December to mid February.
The UK economy grew by more than previously thought in 2012, official figures have shown. The Office for National Statistics (ONS) revised its growth estimate for the year up from no growth to 0.2%. But the figure for the last three months of the year was left unchanged at a quarterly contraction of 0.3%.
Brazil’s inflation will slow in the second half of the year as the country produces a bumper crop of grains and the Real doesn’t weaken as it did last year, central bank President Alexandre Tombini said.
Jack Lew won the Senate Finance Committee’s approval to become US Treasury secretary and a full vote in the upper house confirmed Chuck Hagel as the next US defense secretary. The Senate approved the nomination Tuesday in a vote of 58 to 41.
Interpol Environmental Crime Program, with support from the Pew Charitable Trusts, the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Norwegian Agency for Development Cooperation, this week announced the beginning of a massive global movement -- Project SCALE -- to cull illegal fishing and associated crimes.
Argentina's industrial production started the year with a modest improvement rising 0.2% in January from a year earlier after output shrank 1.2% in 2012 as a whole, government data showed. Factory output rose 0.6% in January compared with December, seasonally adjusted.
Spanish energy giant Repsol SA said Tuesday that it agreed to sell a package of liquefied natural gas assets to Royal Dutch Shell Plc in a transaction valued at 6.65 billion dollars. Shell will pay 4.4bn in cash and assume 2.25bn in debt, Repsol said in a regulatory filing.
World stock markets and southern European government bonds sank on Tuesday on fears that political stalemate in Italy would leave its economic reforms in tatters and reignite the Euro zone's broader debt crisis.
Brazil’s current account deficit surged to a record high in January, outpacing foreign direct investment for the third straight month because of the widening trade gap according to central bank data.