A successful and well attended conference took place at the Aberdeen Exhibition and Conference Centre on the 4th December 2013 to open up business links between the Falkland Islands and Scotland’s oil service business sector. This event was the second of the two planned events from the project known as FalkLink.
The commitment of the governments of the Overseas Territories and the UK to continue to work together in partnership was underlined by Foreign Office minister Mark Simmonds MP when he updated Parliament on the outcome of this year’s Joint Ministerial Council, which was attended by leaders from eleven OTs including the Falkland Islands.
The European Union has formally requested that the exchange of tariff proposals with Mercosur for the creation of a cooperation and free trade zone, originally scheduled for next week, be delayed until 2014. The message was received by the Brazilian delegation at the recent WTO Bali discussions.
Brazil's government food supply agency Conab forecast record soybean output of 90.03 million tons, near the top of its previous forecast of 87.9 million to 90.2 million tons, as farmers finish planting new fields.
Over 150 representatives of British companies and businesses attended the conference on the Pacific Alliance (Chile, Peru, Colombia and Mexico) organized by the British Foreign & Commonwealth Office and the Financial Times. The Alliance is considered one of the newest and most promising political and economic blocks is emerging from Latin America.
The economies of Latin America and the Caribbean will expand by 3.2% in 2014, which is higher than the 2.6% for 2013, according to the latest report from the UN Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean, launched on Wednesday in Santiago, Chile.