Economy

• Wednesday, September 1st 2010 - 00:43 UTC

  Canada, South Africa, India in preliminary trade talks with Mercosur

  

  Canada, South Africa and India are scheduled to begin this year trade talks with Mercosur, according to reports from Ottawa and Johannesburg.

• Wednesday, September 1st 2010 - 00:31 UTC

  Amorim admits Brazil imposes non-trade barriers to its Mercosur associates

  

  Foreign Affairs minister Celos Amorim implicitly admitted that access to the Brazilian market for other Latin American countries, including Mercosur, is not easy because of a proliferation of non trade barriers which has resulted in large surpluses with most of the region’s countries.

• Tuesday, August 31st 2010 - 03:40 UTC

  Uruguay government employees’ take-home pay doubles that of the private sector

  

  Uruguayan government employees’ take-home pay on average more than doubles their counterparts in the private sector according to official figures from the country’s Social Security Office and published by Montevideo’s main daily El País.

• Monday, August 30th 2010 - 19:28 UTC

  Brazil preparing to act against the strong appreciation of its currency

  

  Brazilian Finance Minister Guido Mantega said foreign-based companies operating in Brazil should consider sending some profits home as the exchange rate is unlikely to remain as favorable as it is now.

• Monday, August 30th 2010 - 19:24 UTC

  Survey shows 3.7% of Chilean population lives in extreme poverty

  

  A survey carried out in December 2009 found that Chile has 634,328 people (3.7% of the population) living in extreme poverty. Since 2006 this percentage has gone up by 0.5%, the first increase since 1990. Those affected are mainly in rural areas.

• Monday, August 30th 2010 - 07:18 UTC

  China essential for Uruguay’s “international development”

  

  Uruguay pledged efforts to seek a stronger relationship with Beijing since “China is an essential factor in the international development of Uruguay”, said Vice-President Danilo Astori following an hour long meeting in Beijing with his counterpart Wu Bangguo, president of the National Assembly.

• Monday, August 30th 2010 - 07:10 UTC

  Venezuela, only Latin American economy (together with Haiti) to contract in 2010

  

  Venezuela's economy shrank 3.5% during the first half of 2010 compared to the same period a year earlier, the Central Bank said in a report that revealed a deep recession in the oil rich country ahead of September legislative elections.

• Monday, August 30th 2010 - 06:43 UTC

  IMF proposes a short term liquidity facility to prevent financial crises

  

  A top International Monetary Fund official called for the creation of an emergency lending facility as part of a global toolkit aimed at preventing the spread of financial crises.

• Saturday, August 28th 2010 - 07:15 UTC

  Soaring profits in first half of 2010 for the Chilean mining industry

  

  The Chilean mining industry has ridden the wave of rising copper prices to record major profit increases in the first half of 2010, with three important mining conglomerates showing profits of US$4 billion in that time period.

• Saturday, August 28th 2010 - 07:01 UTC

  Argentina company opens first algae bio-diesel plant

  

  An Argentine company opened on Friday the country's first factory to make bio-diesel from algae, hoping to use it as a replacement for soy in making bio-diesel as part of a push for renewable energy.