According to Argentina’s statistics office Indec consumer inflation was 0.7% pushed mostly by the cost of clothing. However private economic consulting offices estimate the index was double the official announcement.
A haze of tear gas floated through the air, blending in with Santiago’s smog as the Chilean flag atop La Moneda sat in solitude with an occasional breeze. Lemon halves littered the streets as flying glass bottles shattered on the concrete.
The Argentine Central bank has purchased so far this week 500 million US dollars to ensure that the country’s exporters retain a favourable exchange rate and importers are not that tempted to buy foreign goods.
“Saving in US dollars or in soybeans is the same” cautioned Argentine economist Carlos Melconian, who argued that “grain and oilseed prices are more linked to the value of the dollar than to demand for food produce”.
China will become Latin America's second largest trade partner as early as in 2015, the UN Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) said this week.
China on Thursday pledged to extend limits on new home purchases to smaller cities as authorities step up efforts to cool the country's red-hot real estate market. The State Council, or cabinet, said it would tighten existing property restrictions in cities that have seen excessive price rises to push them back to reasonable levels.
Italy's upper house of parliament has agreed to a sweeping austerity budget in a move intended to allay concerns over a possible bailout. Meanwhile, Greece must come to terms with another ratings downgrade.
International Whaling Commission's (IWC) annual meeting closed after a tense final day when relations between opposing blocs came close to collapse. Latin American nations attempted to force a vote on a proposal to create a whale sanctuary in the South Atlantic.
Standard & Poor's has become the latest ratings agency to issue a warning of a possible downgrade to the US's debt rating. It said there was a one-in-two chance that it may cut the US's AAA rating if a deal to raise the government's debt ceiling is not agreed upon soon
Media tycoon Rupert Murdoch and his son James bowed late Thursday to threats to find them in contempt of British Parliament and agreed to testify about the phone-hacking scandal to lawmakers on July 19.