By Jude Webber in Montevideo - The Financial Times has published a piece on Uruguayan president Jose Mujica and his view on the future and his government’s policy towards two powerful neighbors, Argentina and Brazil.
President Federico Franco said Paraguay has long cancelled its debts for the construction of two huge shared hydroelectric dams with its powerful neighbours and demanded Argentina pay for the surplus energy it receives and compensation for flooding Paraguayan territory.
Brazil's Deputy Finance Minister Nelson Barbosa, who helped design some of the government's flagship economic projects, has handed in his resignation for personal reasons and will leave the post in June, the ministry announced on Monday.
BP and Total, Europe’s biggest oil companies after Shell, won exploration rights in the Amazon basin as Brazil’s first oil auction in five years attracts a record level of bids. Total, based in Paris, gained exploration access to operate five blocks at the Foz do Amazonas basin in northern Brazil together with partners BP and Petrobras, the oil regulator said on Tuesday.
Brazil’s Roberto Azevedo vowed to revive the deadlocked World Trade Organisation, as he was confirmed this week as the incoming leader of the body which sets the rules for global commerce.
Brazil’s state-controlled oil firm Petrobras sold 11 billion dollars of global debt on Monday in the largest-ever bond offering by a Latin American company. The deal was split in six tranches comprised of fixed- and floating-rate debt with maturities ranging from three to 30 years, according to a report from Thomson Reuters.
German President Joachim Gauck arrived on Sunday to Brazil with economic and trade issues as the centre of his visit. The trip to Sao Paulo marks the start of the Year of Germany in Brazil, which Gauck's predecessor Christian Wulff agreed on with Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff in May 2011.
The White House announced that Peruvian President Ollanta Humala and Chile’s President Sebastian Piñera will travel to Washington in June and meet with President Barack Obama. The White House also said that Vice President Joe Biden’s next week will visit Brazil and Colombia with a stop in Trinidad and Tobago.
Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro got strong backing from regional heavyweight Brazil on a tour of Mercosur allies to cement his legitimacy as political heir to the late Hugo Chavez.
In the decade after Jim O’Neill of Goldman Sachs coined the acronym “BRICs” in 2001, grouping together four big countries with the potential for sustained growth, the “B”, Brazil, really put itself on the economic map.