
The European Union expects to advance cooperation and trade discussions with Mercosur late this month in Chile in the sidelines of the EU/Celac (Community of Latin American and Caribbean States), said EU ambassador in Chile, Rafael Dochao Moreno.

Switzerland's oldest bank is to close permanently after pleading guilty in a New York court to helping Americans evade their taxes. Wegelin, which was established in 1741, has also agreed to pay 57.8m dollars in fines to US authorities. The bank had admitted to allowing more than 100 American citizens to hide 1.2bn dollars from the Internal Revenue Service for almost 10 years.

Every soccer team from the Argentine First and Second Division will as of this week have to open a bank account where they will deposit the total sum of money generated from soccer player transfers. Financial rights will now solely belong to the entities involved.

The only Falkland Islander to figure in this year’s New Year’s Honours List was recently retired Director of Mineral Resources, Phyllis Mary Rendell, who was awarded an MBE for, “services to Falkland Islands interests.”

The Falkland Islands are an British Overseas Territory by choice, entirely self-governing except for defence and foreign affairs and have been settled for at least nine generations, well before Argentina even claimed what is today Tierra del Fuego, points out the Falklands’ elected government in a release-reply to the open letter from Argentine President Cristina Fernandez published on Thursday in the British press.

Uruguay exports increased 9% last year over 2011 reaching 8.751 billion dollars a numerical historic record according to the primary figures released by the Instituto Uruguay XXI, a government funded organization to promote foreign trade. Soybeans, beef and rice remain as Uruguay’s main export items.

Brazil posted its smallest annual trade surplus in a decade last year as a sluggish global economy curbed demand for its products despite government efforts to boost exports. Brazil's trade surplus fell 35% to 19.44 billion dollars from the prior year, the weakest performance since 2002, Trade Ministry data showed on Wednesday.

Chile joined five other countries that have banned imports of Brazilian beef, since a case of atypical mad cow disease was confirmed last month, Brazil's foreign trade secretary Tatiana Prazeres said on Wednesday.

Uruguay’s Central bank on Wednesday made its largest purchase of US dollars on record totalling 120 million dollars following on the bank’s monetary committee decision in the last week of 2012 to increase the basic rate to 9.25% as the country struggles to contain inflation.

President Jose Mujica anticipated that the Argentine economy can’t remain ‘closed for much more time’ (protectionist) and forecasted that 2013 will be a ‘clear year’ for Uruguay regarding economic issues.