
Argentina's stats office, Indec failed on Wednesday to deliver the country's poverty and indigence rates due to “methodological” reasons, the head of ministers explained on Thursday morning adding the measurement of the basic basket “differs totally” from CPI’s calculations. His comments triggered a cataract of criticisms.

Buenos Aires City Mayor Mauricio Macri rejected on Thursday rumours suggesting a political alliance with the left leaning Broad Front UNEN, born this week and called for its leaders to seek an agreement for “after the (presidential) elections,” in 2015.

Brazil is investigating a potential case of atypical mad cow disease, the agriculture ministry said on Thursday, just over a year after several countries banned Brazilian beef imports when a similar case of the disease was confirmed.

Argentine President Cristina Fernández received on Wednesday China’s Foreign Ministry Wang Yi and signed several trade agreements, including aerospace infrastructure at the Government House, Buenos Aires City. During the meeting, the president was accompanied by Cabinet Chief Jorge Capitanich, Economy Minister Axel Kicillof, Federal Planning Minister Carlos Julio De Vido and Foreign Minister Héctor Timerman, with whom Wang Yi had a previous meeting.

Argentina's economic situation has hit Brazil harder than its other commercial partners, as China has been making inroads into Brazilian trade with Argentina. Chinese exports to Argentina have more than tripled in the last ten years, according to a study carried out by Brazil's National Confederation of Industry, (CNI).

Argentina's Statistics and Census Institute (Indec) postponed the release of figures from the so-called House Poll, which includes strategic information regarding poverty and indigence rates, officials from that entity confirmed on Wednesday afternoon.

Political analyst Rosendo Fraga believes that with the integration this week of the Broad Front, Argentina in the 2015 presidential elections in the hypothetical case of a runoff, would experience a dispute not between two Peronists options, as opinion polls have indicated to far, but with a non Peronist alternative.

Argentina's Supreme Court ruled as unconstitutional a Ministry of Economy resolution imposing export taxes on the overseas sale of produce from Camaronera Patagonica. Following the ruling the Patagonia shrimp company should be able to recover the levies on exports charged between March and August 2002.

María Julia Alsogaray, a former official in Argentine ex-president Carlos Menem administration cabinet (1989/99), was sentenced this week to four years in prison for the fraud she committed during the privatization of the state-owned EnTel telecommunications company in 1989. It is the third sentence for Alsogaray in the past few years.

Argentina's economy expanded 1.3% in February compared with the same month a year ago, the government said on Tuesday, a result that outpaced market expectations. The government's stats office Indec also revised January economic activity to positive 1.4% from a previously reported expansion of 1.2%.