Paraguay president-elect Horacio Cartes ratified he will not be attending the coming Mercosur summit scheduled to take place July 12 in Montevideo, confirmed one of his foreign policy advisors since the Paraguayan position remains that “Venezuela is not a full member of Mercosur because the Paraguayan congress by overwhelming majority rejected such option in August 2012”.
Uruguay’s economy expanded 1.2% in the first quarter of the year compared to the last quarter of 2012, which had a poor performance of 0.1%, according to the latest release from the Central Bank. Likewise in the first quarter the economy increased 3.7% over the same period a year ago.
The most probable death cause of the Chinese crewmembers from two jiggers in quarantine outside the port of Montevideo was lack of sufficient nutrient and balanced food plus tropical parasitosis, according to the primary forensic reports from Uruguayan health authorities.
The next Mercosur summit scheduled for the end of June in Montevideo has been delayed until 12 July, announced Uruguayan Foreign minister Luis Almagro. The new date was agreed by Argentina, Brazil, Uruguay and Venezuela earlier this week.
Uruguay’s changes in the monetary policy regime as announced last week are unlikely to address the country’s inflation problems points out Capital Economics in its latest report emphasizing that a tighter economy policy and reduction of wage indexation remain the main challenges to keep within the 5% target.
Brazil’s JBS SA, the world’s largest beef producer, agreed to buy assets from Marfrig Alimentos SA in Brazil and Uruguay, which will make it the world’s largest chicken producer. JBS will take on 5.85 billion Reais (2.74bn dollars) in debt for the Seara poultry and pork unit in Brazil and the Zenda tannery unit in Uruguay, the Sao Paulo-based company said in a regulatory filing today.
Uruguay announced on Thursday new measures to discourage short term speculative capital inflows that have appreciated the Peso, eroded the country’s international competitiveness, made imports cheaper than domestic production and threaten an already stubborn inflation.
“The time for rhetoric exercises has run out”, said Uruguayan former president Tabare Vazquez during a presentation before the Latin American Studies Association, LASA, in Washington where he emphasized the need for Latinamerican countries to advance in agreements with the United States.
Vice-president and acting president Danilo Astori strongly defended the Uruguayan government’s intention of joining the Pacific Alliance, next to Chile, Colombia, Peru and Mexico, claiming that Mercosur has fallen into a state of ‘inactivity’ but also rejected point blank statements from Brazilian diplomacy contrary to such a move.
Two Chinese jiggers are in quarantine 12 kilometres off the port of Montevideo following the death of two crew members and the hospitalization of another two in separate incidents.