Uruguayan exports of goods in March continued falling thus closing a discouraging first quarter, according to Uruguay XXI, the country’s agency responsible for promoting trade and investment in the country.
President Jose Mujica confirmed that the project for the construction of a liquid gas re-gasification plant in the River Plate coast, originally planned with Argentina, “will go ahead with of without the Argentine government”.
Foreign minister Luis Almagro said on Wednesday that Malvinas Islands’ sovereignty belongs to the whole of Latinamerica and as part of Latinamerica and the Caribbean, “we will defend the territorial integrity of the continent”.
Uruguay’s GDP expanded 3.9% last in 2012 over the previous year despite a slight contraction in the fourth quarter, according to a late Wednesday release from the Central bank. The bank’s original estimate was 4%. In 2011 the economy grew a revised 6.5%.
Pope Francis is scheduled to make his first official visit to Argentina, where he was born, next December ‘to be close to his fellow compatriots’, according to ecclesiastic sources in Buenos Aires. The visit in the first half of December could extend to neighbouring Uruguay and Chile.
On Tuesday Argentina’s Foreign minister Hector Timerman together with representatives from different Latinamerican and Caribbean organizations are scheduled to meet with UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon to address the “Malvinas Islands question”, according to a release from the Argentine Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
Two of Uruguay’s President Jose Mujica closest ministers, Defence and Foreign Affairs said that the ‘British occupation’ of the Falkland Islands is ‘unacceptable’, represents a NATO base in the South Atlantic and described the recent referendum in the Islands as ‘absurd and ridiculous’.
Uruguay’s central bank surprised the market by keeping on hold the benchmark interest rate at 9.25% after increases at the two previous monetary policy meetings failed to slow inflation, one of the country’s main concerns.
The Economist in its latest edition publishes a piece on Uruguay in which it reveals accurately the dilemma facing the country as a consequence of the legacy of the military dictatorship, 1973/1984 with all the killings, disappeared and tortured.
The economic-trade relations with Argentina are going through ‘their worst moment in a long time’, and the latest measures announced by the government of President Cristina Fernandez have a ‘very harmful effect’ on Uruguay, said Vice-president Danilo Astori on Friday.