Economy

• Thursday, March 31st 2011 - 07:35 UTC

  “Unlikely there will be a Mercosur/EU trade deal” in 2011 says Irish minister

  

  Ireland believes it looks increasingly unlikely that there will be a Mercosur-European Union trade deal before the end of the year. Mercosur and the EU resumed trade talks in May 2010 with the objective of reaching a deal by the end of 2011.

• Thursday, March 31st 2011 - 02:17 UTC

  GeoPark joins Korea’s LG to expand oil exploration in Latin America and Asia

  

  Latin American oil and gas company GeoPark Holdings which operates in Argentina and Chile, will sell a 10% stake in GeoPark Chile Ltd for 70 million US dollars to a unit of Korea's LG Corp. The transaction is expected to close in the second quarter of 2011, GeoPark said.

• Thursday, March 31st 2011 - 01:33 UTC

  EU says Argentina’s import restrictions hurt talks for trade deal with Mercosur

  

  Argentina's moves to restrict imports and prop up its shrinking trade surplus as well as European farmers resistance to ‘cheap’ meat imports could hurt talks for a trade deal between Mercosur and the European Union, an EU official said on Wednesday.

• Wednesday, March 30th 2011 - 05:17 UTC

  Uruguay’s farmland price jumped eight times from 2002 to 2010

  

  The number of farmland transactions and the price per hectare were up in Uruguay during 2010 according to a release from Uruguay’s Agriculture and Livestock Ministry Statistics Department, DIEA.

• Tuesday, March 29th 2011 - 18:12 UTC

  IDB pledges to help Latin American countries ‘de-dollarize’ their economies

  

  The Latin American Development Bank, IDB, plans to help Latin American countries “de-dollarize” their economies by providing more financing in local currencies, said bank President Luis Alberto Moreno.

• Tuesday, March 29th 2011 - 18:08 UTC

  World Bank says Latam has capacity and potential to help solve global food crisis

  

  Latin America can help solve the global food crisis by expanding farm production, the World Bank said this weekend, and Colombia said it was on board with plans for an 'agricultural revolution'.

• Tuesday, March 29th 2011 - 17:59 UTC

  IDB loans effectively disbursed in 2010 totaled 10.3 billion US dollars

  

  The Inter-American Development Bank approved 12.136 billion US dollars in new operations in 2010 and made 10.341 billion in loan disbursements from its ordinary capital, according to its latest annual report issued over the weekend.

• Tuesday, March 29th 2011 - 17:54 UTC

  Brazil calls on IDB to speed the planned 70 billion US dollars capitalization

  

  Brazil's Planning Minister Miriam Belchior pressed the Inter-American Development Bank, IDB, to move quickly with its planned 70 billion US dollars capitalization to expand the reach of projects in Latin America.

• Tuesday, March 29th 2011 - 04:47 UTC

  Brazil plans to tax local corporations overseas bond issues, says financial media

  

  The Brazilian government is planning to impose a financial operations tax on overseas bond issues by Brazilian companies, local financial daily Valor Economico reported Monday.

• Tuesday, March 29th 2011 - 04:44 UTC

  Cheap dollar makes US a formidable competitor in beef and chicken production

  

  Emerging countries such as Brazil found a significant space to expand meat exports during the last decade but a heavy weight competitor, United States will be gaining international competitiveness in the sector in coming years because of the steep depreciation of the US Dollar against other currencies.