Economy

• Tuesday, June 12th 2012 - 23:02 UTC

  Unasur new Secretary General promises to work for energy integration and reduce poverty

  

  Venezuela has taken the Unasur secretary general post from Colombia during a ceremony last Monday held in Bogotá with the attendance of Colombian president Juan Manuel Santos and his Paraguayan counterpart Fernando Lugo.

• Tuesday, June 12th 2012 - 19:42 UTC

  The Pacific Alliance, yet another bloc in Latin America

  

  The newly-formed Pacific Alliance bloc seems more like a political club to counterbalance the Atlantic-facing, Brazil-led Mercosur group. However, the bloc accounts for 30% of India’s trade with Latin America. Can India engage the group so it is not left out from their Asia focus?

• Tuesday, June 12th 2012 - 08:46 UTC

  Argentine May inflation 1.71% and 23.85% in twelve months, according to private estimates

  

  Argentine opposition lawmakers unveiled on Monday the inflation index based on the analysis of nine private agencies, which in May reached 1.71%. The unofficial consumer price index has accumulated 23.85% in the last twelve months, twice the volume registered by the Indec national statistics bureau.

• Tuesday, June 12th 2012 - 08:19 UTC

  “The more restrictions on the US dollar, the more people distrust the Argentine peso”

  

  Argentine former economy minister Domingo Cavallo assured that had the restrictions to buy US currency not been applied by the local Government “people would be flocking to buy dollars.”

• Monday, June 11th 2012 - 20:09 UTC

  Stiglitz negative about Spanish bail-out, calls it “voodoo economics”

  

  The plan to lend money to Spain to heal some of its banks may not work because the government and the country's lenders will in effect be propping each other up, Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz said.

• Monday, June 11th 2012 - 19:44 UTC

  China cuts retail gasoline prices 5.5% to reflect cheaper oil and boost the economy

  

  China, the world's second-biggest oil user, will reduce gasoline and diesel prices by the most since 2008 after global crude costs slumped. State-controlled retail gasoline prices will fall by 530 Yuan (83 dollars) a metric ton and diesel will be cut by 510 Yuan, the National Development and Reform Commission, NDRC, the nation's top economic planner, said on its website last week.

• Monday, June 11th 2012 - 05:47 UTC

  Opinion poll shows support for Cristina Fernandez sliding significantly

  

  The image of Argentine president Cristina Fernandez and the approval of her government have fallen significantly in June compared to last October when she was re-elected for a second four year mandate.

• Monday, June 11th 2012 - 03:52 UTC

  Positive reactions to Spanish bail out, but next Sunday Greece puts the Euro to test

  

  The future of the Euro may be determined in the coming weeks, as Greek voters decide whether to honour the country’s international bailout and create a first test for Spain’s newly built 100 billion-Euro banking firewall.

• Saturday, June 9th 2012 - 05:13 UTC

  Middle class Argentines protest with pots and pans against corruption, crime, inflation and the dollar clamp

  

  For the third night in ten days angry Argentines took to the streets of Buenos Aires and other major cities banging pots and pans to protest corruption, rampant crime and insecurity, inflation and the dollar clamp in the midst of an economy that is showing clear signals of exhaustion and growing questions on the current course of affairs.

• Saturday, June 9th 2012 - 05:08 UTC

  Spain expected this weekend to ask help from the Euro zone to bail out its banks

  

  Spain is expected to ask the Euro zone for help with recapitalising its banks this weekend, sources in Brussels and Berlin said on Friday, becoming the fourth country to seek assistance since Europe's debt crisis began.