Brazil’s Vale Doce, the world’s largest iron-ore producer, is aiming to boost copper output more than fivefold by 2015 as it seeks to diversify sales and catch up with rivals, announced top officials from the company during the inauguration of a project in Chile.
The European Central Bank moved Thursday to contain the continent's government debt crisis, extending the availability of emergency loans and keeping its benchmark lending rate at one percent.
Paraguay summer and winter crops in 2010 totalled 12.688.908 tons establishing a new record according to agronomist Luis Cubilla from the Agriculture Biotechnology Institute. The last best harvest was in 2008 with 10.5 million tons.
Stimulus and bailout packages undertaken to cope with the economic crisis can have an impact on trade and investment and need to be managed carefully, according to the head of the World Trade Organization.
China and Argentina have signed agreements to allow the import to China of de-boned beef, dairy products, apples, bamboo and barley, China's quarantine administration said on Wednesday. However no mention was made of an expected deal on corn.
The Euro remains near 11-month lows against the US dollar as European debt concerns continue to focus on Portugal. With the Portuguese government due to auction 500m Euros of bonds later, analysts are waiting to see the extent of market interest.
In a clear signal of the lack of qualified labour which is suffering the booming Brazilian economy, the powerful Marfrig meats’ processing group admitted it was having difficulties to fill 3.000 vacancies with competent personnel.
The Euro has fallen against the dollar and major European markets have dropped sharply, a day after ministers agreed a bail-out for the Irish Republic. On Sunday, European ministers reached agreement over a bail-out worth about 85bn Euros.
Belgium has joined Portugal, Spain and Italy on the hit list of countries that may be heading for financial crisis. Like Ireland, struggling to fend off criticism of its austerity package, there are signs that international bond investors are starting to view Belgium as living on borrowed money and borrowed time.
Amid expectations over President Barack Obama's comments on the Wikileaks scandal, he instead offered a speech to announce a two-year freeze on the pay of federal workers, as he seeks to show he is committed to reining in the ballooning US budget deficit.