Economy

• Monday, December 2nd 2013 - 13:32 UTC

  Chile among leading exporters of 23 non-copper related products

  

  Chile leads the world in copper production but the country must do more to diversify its export-driven economy, according to experts. Precisely to diversify several government and industry bodies have spent years promoting Chile’s major non-mining related export items, which consist largely of produce, wood products and aquaculture.

• Monday, December 2nd 2013 - 13:21 UTC

  Uruguay admits regional conditions are influencing the number of arrived tourists

  

  Uruguay estimates that the number of arriving tourists to the country by the end of the year will reach 2.830.000, which is 40.000 less than in 2012, but still encouraging given the regional conditions, according to Tourism minister Liliam Kechichian.

• Friday, November 29th 2013 - 23:38 UTC

  Mining giant Vale settles tax dispute: agrees to pay Brazil's treasury 9.6bn dollars

  

  Mining giant Vale has agreed to pay the Brazilian treasury 9.6 billion dollars to settle a decade-long dispute over back taxes, after the country’s tax authority offered to reduce the corporation's original 14.1bn debt.

• Friday, November 29th 2013 - 22:06 UTC

  Falklands involved oil company expects to raise £100 million in bond offer

  

  Premier Oil expects to raise at least £100 million in a bond offer scheduled to close on 6 December. The FTSE 250 oil and gas company, with interests in the Falkland Islands, the North Sea, and South-East Asia, said its 5% sterling bonds auction has already built a book value of at least £100 million.

• Friday, November 29th 2013 - 07:23 UTC

  Desperately dollar-short Venezuela planning gold reserves swap operation

  

  Venezuela is evaluating a swap agreement involving gold reserves as a way to fortify dollar supplies in a country which suffers chronic product shortages and inflation close to 55%. Opposition leader Henrique Capriles said last week that the government was negotiating a swap operation with Goldman Sachs involving 1.45 million ounces of gold worth around 1.86 billion dollars.

• Thursday, November 28th 2013 - 22:51 UTC

  Repsol contracts Deutsche Bank as advisor for the YPF compensation deal

  

  Repsol appointed Deutsche Bank AG to advise it on the compensation pre-settlement it reached with Argentina regarding the seizure of 51% of YPF in April 2012. The arrangement was negotiated in Buenos Aires this week by ministers from Argentina and Spain, Repsol executives, and representatives from the Spanish company’s two largest shareholders, Mexico's Petroleos Mexicanos, Pemex and Barcelona-based CaixaBank SA.

• Thursday, November 28th 2013 - 20:51 UTC

  Poor ratings for Chile in health care and pensions' system, according to OECD

  

  Two biannual reports revealed Chile as one of the countries with the worst pension statistics and the highest citizen out-of-pocket expenditure on health among Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) nations.

• Thursday, November 28th 2013 - 11:45 UTC

  Brazil determined to fight inflation raised its benchmark interest rate to 10%

  

  As was anticipated Brazil raised its benchmark interest rate to 10% from 9.5% on Wednesday lifting borrowing costs back to double-digit territory to battle high inflation in Latin America's largest economy.

• Thursday, November 28th 2013 - 11:40 UTC

  Brazil auctions concession of highway that transports 45 million tons of grains annually

  

  Brazilian construction giant Odebrecht on Wednesday was awarded a 30-year concession to operate and maintain a stretch of the BR-163 federal highway, a major road in the western state of Mato Grosso, also known as 'soy road' because of the millions of tons of grains and oilseeds that are transported annually.

• Thursday, November 28th 2013 - 11:28 UTC

  North west England trade mission scheduled to visit Chile, Argentina and Brazil

  

  Attracted by Chile’s positive economic climate a trade mission for North West England will be arriving in Santiago on 2nd-3rd December. The delegation from one of the most dynamic areas of the UK economy has representatives from Covering Cheshire, Lancashire, Cumbria and the cities of Manchester and Liverpool.