Economy

• Tuesday, December 11th 2012 - 21:33 UTC

  Capital controls debate resurfaces as IMF admits temporary measures to prevent asset bubbles

  

  IMF Managing Director Christine Lagarde on a five day tour of Latin America is expected to outline the lender’s reversal of its decades-old opposition to capital controls, even as Brazil says the new position doesn’t go far enough.

• Tuesday, December 11th 2012 - 19:04 UTC

  Atypical BSE case detected among grass fed cattle in south Brazil

  

  A scientific commission from the World Organization for Animal Health, OIE, will commence in February to study the case of atypical Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy, BSE, reported in the south of Brazil among a herd of animals fed on grassland.

• Tuesday, December 11th 2012 - 18:20 UTC

  EU parliament prepares to approve trade accords with Central America, Peru and Colombia

  

  Spanish members of the European parliament and Trade Commissioner Karel De Gucht called on Tuesday on the full house to ratify the association agreement of the EU with Central America, and the EU free trade agreement with Colombia and Peru.

• Tuesday, December 11th 2012 - 18:15 UTC

  Lagarde praises the Colombian economy and its potential support for IMF

  

  The IMF Managing Director Christine Lagarde praised Colombia as a member with the capacity to support the multilateral organization with “funds” and “services”, something which in the past was not possible. Lagarde made the comments after meeting with Colombian president Juan Manuel Santos in Bogotá where she underlined the “magnificent moment” of the Andean country’s economy.

• Tuesday, December 11th 2012 - 16:27 UTC

  The Economist and President Rousseff clash over ‘Brazil cost’ and Mantega

  

  President Dilma Rousseff reiterated she wouldn’t be influenced by The Economist magazine’s call for her to oust Finance Minister Guido Mantega after a growth report that fell short of government forecasts.

• Tuesday, December 11th 2012 - 13:15 UTC

  St Helena insists with close business links with the Falkland Islands

  

  Former Managing Director of the Falkland Island Development Corporation, Julian Morris, now Executive Officer of Economic Development on St Helena, has been caught up in a tight schedule of meetings during his visit over the past week, to encourage Falklands’ business investment in St Helena.

• Monday, December 10th 2012 - 20:10 UTC

  YPF CEO Galuccio travels to Norway to discuss partnership with Statoil

  

  Argentina’ nationalized oil and gas corporation YPF is said to be in talks with Norway’s Statoil about a possible partnership as part of its 37 billion dollars drive to develop Argentina’s energy reserves. It is close to signing deals with US oil giant Chevron as well as Bridas Corp, the Chinese-Argentine joint venture, the Financial Times reported on Sunday.

• Monday, December 10th 2012 - 20:05 UTC

  Brazil plans to invest 26bn dollars in four years to modernize ports

  

  Brazil's government has unveiled plans to invest 54.2 billion Reais (approx 26 billion dollars) over the next four years to modernize the country's ports, whose high costs and notorious delays are eroding the country’s competitive edge.

• Monday, December 10th 2012 - 18:48 UTC

  European Central Bank says it has ‘much to learn’ from Latam robust financial systems

  

  The Vice-president of the European central bank Vitor Constancio said the EU has much to learn from Latin America which has coped with successive economic and financial crises and has managed to create robust financial structures which have made the region’s system even more resistant to outside shocks.

• Monday, December 10th 2012 - 05:51 UTC

  Dollar clamp represents the failure of Argentina’s energy policy, says Lavagna

  

  Former Economy minister Roberto Lavagna said that it will take Argentina “at least three years” to liberate the country from the ‘dollar clamp’ if as of this month it was decided to execute a policy to end restrictions on the purchase of foreign currency.