Economy

• Monday, July 2nd 2012 - 05:38 UTC

  Brazil extends cut breaks on home appliances to help boost consumption

  

  Brazilian government extended domestic tax breaks on home appliances and furniture, emphasizing efforts to help ailing Brazilian industries.

• Monday, July 2nd 2012 - 05:28 UTC

  Brazil’s Vale gets green light for largest ever iron ore mining project

  

  The world's number two mining company, Brazil’s Vale Doce said it received an environmental license to build its biggest-ever iron ore mine, an Amazon region project that holds about one trillion dollars of reserves at current prices.

• Saturday, June 30th 2012 - 05:39 UTC

  Mercosur doubles list of goods that can have tariffs raised unilaterally 35% by each member

  

  Mercosur rejected an Argentine proposal to raise imports tariffs on all goods from outer zone to protect local industries, but accepted Brazil’s initiative to raise tariffs unilaterally on 200 goods, up from 100 agreed last December.

• Saturday, June 30th 2012 - 05:25 UTC

  Relief in EU: German parliament approved Euro rescue fund and fiscal pact

  

  As expected, more than two-thirds of the lawmakers in Germany's parliament moved on Friday to approve the permanent Euro rescue fund, the European Stability Mechanism, and a fiscal pact long championed by Chancellor Angela Merkel.

• Saturday, June 30th 2012 - 05:19 UTC

  Brazil farmers rush to cash soy exports on high prices and favourable exchange rate

  

  Brazil could soon run out of soybeans to export this year after farmers’ frontloaded their shipments more than normal to cash in on high international prices and a favourable exchange rate.

• Saturday, June 30th 2012 - 04:37 UTC

  China prepares the ground for the Yuan to gradually become a reserve currency

  

  China will make part of the booming Shenzhen economic zone, a test ground for freer Yuan usage and capital account convertibility, the National Development and Reform Commission said on Friday.

• Saturday, June 30th 2012 - 03:52 UTC

  Mercosur ‘suspended’ Paraguay feels free to establish trade links with other countries

  

  President Federico Franco announced in a press conference that if Paraguay is suspended from Mercosur the country will feel free to look for other trade agreements and international relations.

• Friday, June 29th 2012 - 05:21 UTC

  Argentina insists with 5.1% growth forecast for 2012 despite signs to the contrary

  

  Argentina's government is sticking to its 5.1% growth forecast for 2012 enshrined in the budget, Economy Minister Hernan Lorenzino said on Thursday, despite recent data that shows a sharp deceleration.

• Friday, June 29th 2012 - 05:16 UTC

  Rousseff unveils 55bn dollars in loans at lower rates for the 2012/13 farm season

  

  Brazilian president Dilma Rousseff has unveiled a 115-billion-Reais (55 billion dollars) loan program aimed at reinforcing agriculture's role as a lever of Brazilian economic growth.

• Friday, June 29th 2012 - 03:00 UTC

  Uruguay’s project for a deepwater port on the Atlantic takes off

  

  Uruguay’s government is going forward with plans to build its first deepwater port along the Atlantic coastline in a place called “La Angostura”, an investment estimated in over 700 million dollars and which it wants to use as a platform to begin exporting iron-ore to China.