
”Good progress” has been made in parts of a new program between the International Monetary Fund and Argentina, IMF officials said in a statement on Friday. An IMF team visited Argentina to begin discussions on repackaging some US$ 45 billion the country owes the Fund.

Companies that participate in Argentina’s natural gas production plan will have free access to the official foreign exchange market, the central bank said this week, opening a loophole in tight capital controls that have been in place for more than a year.

U.S. soybean futures rose for a sixth consecutive session on Friday and hit a four-year high on dry conditions in key South American crop areas and concerns about dwindling U.S. supplies. Corn also gained on strong exports and worries about South American dryness, while wheat ended mixed.

Argentine businessman Jorge Horacio Brito, one of the richest people in the country, has died, according to a statement from Banco Macro, the bank he founded. Brito, 68, died Friday afternoon following a helicopter crash in the northern province of Salta, the newspapers Clarin and La Nacion reported earlier.

The Argentine president Alberto Fernández made a surprise visit to Uruguay on Thursday to meet his peer Luis Lacalle Pou, with whom they shared a barbecue and according to both leaders addressed bilateral and regional affairs with special emphasis on trade prospects such as the Mercosur/EU trade agreement.

As anticipated, the Argentine government objected to the mines' clearance effort announced by the United Kingdom in Geneva for having been addressed “unilaterally in Argentine territory illegitimately occupied” and in violation of UN Resolution 3149 which calls on both sides to abstain from any unilateral action in the disputed territories.

Argentine President Alberto Fernandez announced on Tuesday he was sending a new bill on legalizing abortion to Congress, re-opening a debate that has bitterly divided the traditionally Catholic nation.

Argentine meat processing plants will invest US$ 187 million in a bid to increase exports from the country by 33% over three years to 1.2 million tons per year, the head of a local trade group said on Monday during a conference with government officials.

Economy Minister Martin Guzman and other Argentine officials were placed in preventive isolation on Sunday after a member of a visiting IMF mission tested positive for COVID-19, the government said.

The eastern Chinese city of Jinan said it has found the new coronavirus on beef and tripe, and on packaging for these products from Brazil, New Zealand and Bolivia as China ramps up testing on frozen foods.