IMF Managing Director is scheduled to visit Uruguay next month where he will meet President Jose Mujica and his economic team before flying to Brazil. Dominique Strauss-Khan will arrive in Uruguay from Panama and is not scheduled to visit Argentina, according to Uruguayan government sources.
The number of foreign tourists visiting Argentina jumped 27.1% in 2010 compared to the year before, while dollars spent increased 25.9% according to air and sea arrivals and City of Buenos Aires numbers compiled by the country’s Statistics and Census Office, Indec.
The Brazilian National Civil Aviation Agency (ANAC) has published its operational data for the month of January 2011.
US Federal Reserve officials are increasingly confident of the economic recovery but remain unsatisfied with the healing of the job market, minutes of their January meeting released showed.
Argentina's industrial production in January continued to expand at a quick pace, led by strong output of machinery and equipment, food, non-metallic minerals and chemicals, a local think tank reported Wednesday.
Brazilian state-run development bank BNDES will receive at least 45 billion Real or 27 billion US dollars from the government to extend its program of low-cost loans for supporting company investments in capital goods, local media reported this week.
Imports restrictions imposed this week by the Argentine government with the purpose of “preserving the re-industrialization process” cover approximately 200 products totalling annual imports of a billion US dollars, according to preliminary reports.
Brazil reiterated opposition to a French plan to impose regulation on commodity prices, saying it could have negative effects on major suppliers such as itself. Brazil is totally opposed to a mechanism of control or regulation of commodity prices, Finance Minister Guido Mantega told reporters, reiterating a position he gave last week.
Canadian credit rating agency DBRS maintained Uruguay’s debt at BB (two steps below investment grade) but elevated prospect from stable to positive. The latest release from DBRS means Uruguay in the next 6 to 12 months could advance to one step below investment grade if “current fiscal discipline is sustained and levels of debt continue the descending trend”.
The European Central Bank is not surrendering its price stability objective for crisis management policy, the bank's President Jean-Claude Trichet said. He also argued that the recent spike in Euro zone inflation is due to the current rapid economic recovery in emerging markets and not due to the currency bloc's sovereign debt crisis.