
Chilean President Sebastian Pinera said on Friday that more than one million people had received the government's US$ 626 spot payment aimed at staving off the economic effects of the coronavirus pandemic and it had approved more than 550,000 requests for soft loans of up to US$ 815.

Chile’s Congress has approved a law to allow the central bank to buy bonds issued by the country’s treasury in the secondary market, potentially giving the bank added firepower to help offset fallout from the COVID-19 crisis.

The Falkland Islands government, FIG, which continues to review connetivity, was informed by LATAM that the weekly air link with Chile, via the Punta Arenas-Santiago route will remain suspended until at least 7 November 2020, and the situation will be reviewed near that date.

Latin America's biggest airline, the Brazilian-Chilean group LATAM, said it was laying off at least 2,700 crew to cope with the devastating effects of the coronavirus pandemic on the aviation industry.

The repatriation flight organised by the Falkland Islands Government arrived this morning, 31 July 2020, from Punta Arenas, Chile returning two Falkland Island residents to the Islands, and departing with 30 passengers on-board.

Mr. Ian Duddy has been appointed Ambassador to the Republic of Chile in succession to Mr Jamie Bowden. Mr Duddy’s priorities will be focused on UK-Chile co-operation in response to the Coronavirus crisis, including efforts for a clean, resilient global economic recovery and promoting meaningful action to tackle climate change in the lead-up to the COP26 UN climate conference hosted in Glasgow in November 2021 by the UK in partnership with Italy.

The Falkland Islands government had made donations to Uruguayan and Chilean Covid-19 charitable organizations that support Covid victims in the two countries. The decision was agreed this week by the Standing Financial Committee and involved 5,000 pounds to each of the organizations in the two South American neighbors.

Coronavirus cases in Latin America for the first time have surpassed the combined infections in the United States and Canada, a tally showed on Sunday, amid a surge of infections in Brazil, Mexico, Peru, Colombia and Argentina.

On July 13 ExCo approved measures to facilitate a repatriation flight for approximately 50 individuals present in the Falklands who had planned to return home via scheduled flights, but due to the suspension of the LATAM services to South America had been unable to do so.

Chilean senators on Wednesday voted to approve a controversial bill that allows citizens to withdraw 10% of their pension savings to help ease the economic impact of the coronavirus outbreak.