The IMF downgraded growth estimates for Latinamerica in 2013 from 3.9% to 3.6%, mainly because of an anticipated poor showing of the region’s largest economy Brazil, according to the Fund’s latest report on the world economy prospects.
IMF Managing Director Christine Lagarde said she is unsure about Brazil’s economic outlook despite the country’s official estimate of 3.5% growth this year, since recovery is “very slow” as the 1% of 2012 showed.
Representatives from sixty countries begin Saturday in Santiago de Chile the two day summit which breaks with recent tradition: Latin American countries, full of economic confidence, are hosting their European partners and are expected to volunteer to help with Europe’s economic problems.
Chile confirmed that Paraguay finally decided not to attend the EU/CELAC summit in Chile putting an end to a controversy when it emerged that several Mercosur and Unasur members insisted that the landlocked country should not be invited.
The European Union27 international trade in goods with the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States, (CELAC), has been characterised in recent years by steady growth between 2003 and 2008, a sharp decline in 2009 and a strong recovery since then.
As part of its overall efforts to ensure that the US fishing industry isn’t undermined by unsustainable or illegal activities, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) has submitted a Congressionally mandated report identifying ten nations whose fishing vessels engaged in illegal, unreported, and unregulated (IUU) fishing in 2011 or 2012, or had ineffective measures to prevent the unintended catch of protected species in 2012.
Spain’s unemployment rate shot up to a record 26% in the fourth quarter of 2012, leaving almost six million people out of work, the National Statistics Institute said on Friday. The rate rose from 25% in the third quarter as the country’s recession deepened.
Chancellor George Osborne has vowed not to run away from Britain's economic woes amid fresh signs the UK is heading for an unprecedented triple dip recession. The first official estimate from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) revealed the economy shrank by 0.3% between October and December, slamming the recovery into reverse after the 0.9% growth seen in the previous quarter.