The latest data indicate that the recovery in the European Union will be better than expected according to Anne Krueger, International Monetary Fund, First Deputy Managing Director.
Uruguay received a 200 million US dollars loan from the Interamerican Development Bank, IDB, to help stabilize the banking system, ensure liquidity and the recovery of depositors trust.
A Buenos Aires province Supreme Court report warns of possible ties between Argentine soldiers and criminal gangs implicated in murders and kidnappings, in which police involvement is also suspected.
The proposal of creating a variable-speed (flexible) Free Trade Association of the Americas, FTAA, seems to have gained ground in the current ministerial meeting in Miami in spite of Chile, Mexico and Canada who prefer a more committed and rigid accord.
Headlines:
Sustained industrial expansion; Review of public utilities rates only in 2004; Unemployment and corruption, Argentina's nightmares; Argentine officers join Chilean Army exercises; Economic state of emergency extended to 2005.
Ministers from 34 countries of the Americas approved this Thursday the Miami Declaration which contemplates a more flexible Free Trade Association of the Americas, FTAA, agreement enabling negotiations to proceed in accordance with the 2005 timetable.
The mild recovery of the Uruguayan economy in the first quarter of 2003 consolidated in the second Q and GDP expanded at an annual rate of 5,5% according to the latest release from the Uruguayan Central Bank. Growth actually was 2,2% in the first Q and increased to 3,3% in the second Q.
Argentine airlines Southern Winds and Líneas Aéreas Federales SA, (an Argentine government managed company of three failed airlines that still has to take off) announced in Buenos Aires they will be jointly flying three times a week to Mexico City and the international sea resort of Cancún beginning next December.
Treasury Secretary John Snow addressing the annual conference of the Confederation of British Industry, CBI, in Birmingham anticipated the United States economy would be expanding 4,2% in the last quarter of 2003.
Headlines:
US priority: an operational agreement by 2005; Argentina targets a flexible agreement.