The following piece was written by Andrés Velasco, a former Minister of Finance of Chile, and visiting professor at Columbia University for 2011-2012. As a neighbour of Argentina, first, and then as an economist he is well entitled to give an accurate briefing.
Argentina should pay its debt with the Paris Club group of creditor nations if it wants to continue receiving foreign investment, said Paolo Martelli, director for Latin America of the World Bank’s International Finance Corp, reports Buenos Aires daily La Nación.
United States regulators disclosed they may take action against Standard & Poor's for securities law violations after the ratings agency gave top grades to a package of securitized mortgages in 2007 that quickly soured.
Brazil’s Finance Minister Guido Mantega returned home early from the IMF/World Bank meetings in Washington this weekend, after a plunge in the Real extended the world’s biggest currency slump over the past month.
BAL Chile SA is dedicated to farming algae on the island of Chiloé and in a second stage, plans to produce bio-fuels for industrial use, announced the company’s CEO Benjamin González.
A Uruguayan government delegation will begin talks on Tuesday in Brazil to address the latest restrictions imposed by Mercosur largest member and which threaten several manufacturing sectors, particularly the auto industry, said Foreign Affairs minister Luis Almagro.
Greek Finance Minister Evangelos Venizelos dismissed reports that he has discussed a scenario of an orderly default by Athens with International Monetary Fund Chief Christine Lagarde and European Central Bank head Jean-Claude Trichet.
Argentine Economy Minister Amado Boudou urged countries in the region to “seize the opportunity created as a result of the crisis affecting developed nations and implement their own solutions.”
Nicolas Eyzaguirre, the IMF director for Latin America, stated that Argentina must apply “major measures” to improve its method of measuring the inflation.
The Economist in its latest edition has a two-chapter piece on trade restrictions imposed by South America’s two biggest economies. The first (“Keep Out”) refers to Argentina and the second (“A self made siege’) to Brazil.