Brazil offered Paraguay the rotating chair of Mercosur as of next December, as part of an overall understanding to have the landlocked country return to the block, while accepting the incorporation of Venezuela as a full member of the group. Paraguay rejects Venezuela’s membership alleging it was done against the will of its Senate and in breach of national and international law and of the Mercosur charter.
Two days ago, former Brazilian billionaire Eike Batista crossed a line. He started to default on a 45 million dollars interest payments on his oil and gas company, OGX's, bonds. The default will be official on October 30th, according to Bloomberg. That leaves bondholders, like PIMCO, the largest bond fund in the world helmed by legendary investor Bill Gross, taking a massive hit. And what's worse is that there could be more to come, according to the Wall Street Journal.
Brazil, Latin America's largest economy is in dire need of structural reforms and reduced government bloat to fuel sustainable growth, analysts say. And this will not happen overnight and will take massive political will. A giant but it carries “a lot of fat and not much in the way of muscle”.
Brazil's oil and natural gas output rose for the second time in three months in August as new output from giant offshore fields barely outpaced declines from the depletion of older areas and maintenance, oil industry watchdog ANP said this week.
A Brazilian federal judge on Tuesday dismissed a lawsuit against US oil company Chevron Corp after approving a negotiated settlement, a decision that closes a nearly two-year legal battle over an oil spill in November 2011.
Brazil’s state oil company Petrobras, which will mark its 60th anniversary on Thursday, has announced it will increase production by 50% in an effort to overcome the current situation. Nine production units now being installed will pump an additional one million barrels a day beginning next year said Petrobras CEO María das Graças Foster.
Brazilian president Dilma Rousseff received her peer from Paraguay, Horacio Cartes with full head of state honours but at the same time reminded him that Paraguay is a full member of Mercosur and “bilateral relations are in the context of multilateral relations with all countries of the hemisphere”.
Brazil posted its first primary budget deficit for the month of August in more than a decade, central bank data showed on Monday, pointing to a deterioration in the country's finances that is worrying investors and rating agencies.
Germany's Daimler plans to build a new car factory in Brazil, becoming the third German premium automaker to announce such plans within the past year. The company announced it would invest around 170 million Euros to set up a shop in Iracemapolis, near Sao Paulo.
Last week Brazil’s Dilma Rousseff reopened her official twitter, closed since January 2011 when she was inaugurated, but now a year ahead of elections has reappeared with the character “Dilma Bolada”, full of music, colour and satire. “Sou Linda, sou diva, sou Presidenta, Sou Dilma” is the slogan of her Facebook with over half a million fans in just a few days