The next Mercosur presidential summit is scheduled to take place next 26/28 June in the city of Mendoza, when the rotating chair will be handed for the following six months to Brazil.
Adding fuel to the quarrel between Argentina and Spain for disagreements over Spanish investors administrated YPF, Spanish Industry minister of José Manuel Soria vowed on Tuesday to defend his country’s interests.
Rating agency Moody's said on Tuesday that Spain's fiscal outlook remained challenging despite recently softened deficit targets. The announcement comes when the Secretary for Public administration admitted that 4.000 ‘ayuntamientos’ town councils in Spain are not financially viable.
Uruguayan president Jose Mujica promised on Monday to ‘fight to the death’ for the future of Mercosur in spite of the fact that the group’s junior members Uruguay and Paraguay are suffering the most as Argentina and Brazil implement growing hurdles to trade.
The World Bank’s new Latin America chief backed selective use of capital controls when inflows were creating asset bubbles or distorting foreign exchange markets. Hasan Tuluy, the Bank’s new vice-president for Latin America and the Caribbean, said while trade protectionism should be avoided, there was space for macro prudential measures.
Brazil is Latin America’s fastest-growing travel and tourism economy and direct contribution to GDP is forecast to grow at 7.8% in 2012.
The Australian Senate has pushed through into law a 30% tax on iron ore and coal mining companies. The tax will raise A$10.6bn (11.2bn dollars) over three years from major companies including BHP Billiton, Rio Tinto and Xtrata.
“As of this year Brazil will follow the US example giving a 25% margin of preference to local goods in government procurement”, said Fernando Pimentel, Minister for Development, Industry and Foreign Trade.
Drought over Brazil's southern soy growing states prompted analysts Agroconsult to strike 2.8 million tons from its forecast of the 2011/12 crop to 67.1 million tons from 69.9 million previously.
Argentina’s truckers called Monday an indefinite strike to demand higher pay rates, parking their rigs in protest just as exporters were counting on them to haul freshly harvested soybeans to port.