
Brazilian industrial production output experienced an increase of 0.4% in July from a month earlier, which is less than expected according to a report released by the Brazilian national statistics bureau IBGE in Río de Janeiro, compared with a 1% decline in June.

Brazil’s JBS, the world's top beef producer is trying to sell three of its Argentine plants due to government policies that have depleted cattle stocks and supply and hurt profits, a trade group said on Tuesday.

Colombian president Juan Manuel Santos arrived Tuesday in Brazil for an official two-day state visit that begins Wednesday with a meeting with President Lula da Silva to address a regional political agenda and strengthen bilateral trade.

As many as 23 million men and women in the EU were unemployed in July, according to data released by Eurostat on Tuesday. Of these, 15.833 million are from the Eurozone countries.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.