Economy

• Thursday, January 19th 2012 - 05:57 UTC

  Brazil cuts basic rate to 10.5% and signals further reductions in the future

  

  Brazil’s central bank indicated on Wednesday it will keep cutting interest rates at the current pace after it reduced borrowing costs by a half-point to 10.5%, for a fourth straight meeting.

• Thursday, January 19th 2012 - 04:00 UTC

  “Get ready” a big storm is on its way, warns the latest World Bank forecast

  

  The World Bank warned developing countries today to prepare for the “real” risk that an escalation in the Euro area debt crisis could tip the world into a slump on a par with the global downturn in 2008/09.

• Thursday, January 19th 2012 - 03:57 UTC

  Brazilian government considers Argentina “a permanent problem” in economic issues

  

  Industry and Foreign Trade minister Fernando Pimentel expressed on Wednesday the Brazilian government’s deep disappointment with the latest Argentine legislation to be implemented on trade saying that Argentina is “a permanent problem”.

• Thursday, January 19th 2012 - 03:52 UTC

  Argentine government calls on unions and businesses to act with “responsibility”

  

  Argentine acting President, Vice-President Amado Boudou called on businessmen and union workers to act with “responsibility” in direct reference to the upcoming round of wage negotiations that will be held later this year and unions have anticipated will have to be referred to workers “pocket” inflation.

• Wednesday, January 18th 2012 - 23:38 UTC

  IMF anticipating major storms wants to boost war chest by 600 billion dollars

  

  The International Monetary Fund is seeking to boost its war chest by 600 billion dollars to help countries reeling from the Euro zone debt crisis, but some nations insist Europe must first do more to support its ailing members, international financial sources said on Wednesday.

• Wednesday, January 18th 2012 - 17:02 UTC

  Argentina prepares list of capital goods subject to higher import tariffs

  

  The Argentine government has began a round of consultations with the manufacturing sector to determine which capital goods from non Mercosur members can be listed for a higher common external tariff as was recently agreed by the trade block.

• Wednesday, January 18th 2012 - 16:46 UTC

  Uruguay’s economy minister, second best in the region for two years running

  

  The Economy ministers from Colombia, Uruguay and Peru have been rated as the best in Latin America according to the financial magazine America Economica, a publication from the Chilean company Nanbei which does the annual survey based on interviews with 70 Latin American economists.

• Wednesday, January 18th 2012 - 05:16 UTC

  Brazil plans to further fund the Development bank anticipating credit crunch

  

  Brazil is considering injecting more funds to the National Development bank, BNDES for the fifth year running in anticipation of a possible shortage of long term credit in the economy, said Arno Augustin, Secretary of the Treasury.

• Wednesday, January 18th 2012 - 05:12 UTC

  Drought emergency in central Argentina and Paraguay but no sufficient rains on sight

  

  Argentine corn and soy farms will suffer from hot weather and scant rains for the rest of this week, forecasters said on Tuesday, increasing worries that crop losses will eat into global supplies.

• Wednesday, January 18th 2012 - 03:20 UTC

  Rating agencies forecast Greece’s default…but in an orderly manner

  

  Like in Colombian Nobel Prize Gabriel Garcia Marquez novel “Chronicle of a Death Foretold” Fitch rating agency said on Tuesday that Greece would default on its debt, although it anticipated that such a default was likely to take place in an orderly manner.