Economy

• Friday, April 1st 2011 - 01:54 UTC

  Mujica: we need Venezuela in Mercosur “to help balance the group”

  

  Uruguayan president Jose Mujica promised his peer Hugo Chavez he would press strongly for Venezuela’s incorporation as full member of Mercosur because this will help balance the group.

• Friday, April 1st 2011 - 01:37 UTC

  In spite of Mercosur “unfulfilled agenda”, there will be trade agreement with EU

  

  Uruguay’s Vice-president Danilo Astori said that Mercosur “unfulfilled agenda” will not affect the chances of reaching an agreement with the European Union which if finally achieved will also help the “block to work better”.

• Friday, April 1st 2011 - 00:25 UTC

  Brazil’s central bank just manages to slow the Real currency advance

  

  Brazil’s Real retreated from the highest level since August 2008 after the central bank intervened five times Thursday to slow the currency’s advance. The Real fell 0.2% to 1.6318 per dollar, from 1.6288 Wednesday.

• 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.