Economy

• Friday, April 1st 2011 - 00:03 UTC

  G20 leaders closer on agreeing greater global role for Chinese currency

  

  G20 leaders have moved towards agreeing that China's currency should have a wider role in global finance. The G20 is to study whether to include the Chinese Yuan within the basket of currencies that make up the IMF Special Drawing Right.

• Thursday, March 31st 2011 - 14:11 UTC

  Uruguay’s wholesale prices soared 10.82% in the first quarter of 2011

  

  Uruguay’s wholesale prices soared in March for the third month running reaching 4.42%, the highest since 2010, reports the country’s Statistics Institute, INE.

• Thursday, March 31st 2011 - 14:06 UTC

  Foreign direct investment in Uruguay recovers in 2010: up 28% from 2009

  

  Foreign direct investment in Uruguay reached 1.6 billion US dollars in 2010, up 28% from 2009, according to the fourth quarter Balance of Payments report released this week by the country’s Central bank.

• 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.