Economy

• Friday, February 26th 2010 - 01:27 UTC

  Peru/China free trade agreement becomes effective next March first

  

  The free trade agreement between Peru and China becomes fully effective as of next Monday March first, according to the publication on Thursday of the official decree in Peru’s gazette. China has become Peru’s main trade partner behind the US.

• Friday, February 26th 2010 - 01:23 UTC

  Fed probe into Wall Street firms role in helping Greece mask debt woes

  

  The role of Wall Street firms in deals that may have helped Greece mask its debt woes are under scrutiny in the US, the Federal Reserve chief has said. Ben Bernanke said the Fed and the US financial watchdog were “looking into a number of questions” related to banks' derivatives arrangements with Greece

• Thursday, February 25th 2010 - 05:03 UTC

  Argentine court keeps freeze on Central Bank reserves

  

  An Argentine federal court kept a hold on the government’s plan to use 6.6 billion US dollars in Central Bank reserves to pay debt, sending the case to the Supreme Court for a final ruling, Argentina’s Court Information Center Web site said.

• Thursday, February 25th 2010 - 04:52 UTC

  Bernanke reaffirmed low interest rates for an extended period

  

  United States stocks rose on Wednesday after the Federal Reserve chairman reaffirmed his commitment to keep interest rates low for an extended period to sustain the still fragile recovery. Ben Bernanke told Congress a weak job market and tame inflation warranted keeping rates close to their near-zero level for the time being.

• Thursday, February 25th 2010 - 04:48 UTC

  Official Argentine economy data shows recovery in underway

  

  Argentina's trade surplus widened 25% in January from the same month a year ago as both exports and imports rose, signalling an economic recovery is underway.

• Thursday, February 25th 2010 - 01:25 UTC

  EU ready to reach trade agreements with Latinamerica by next May

  

  Spanish president Jose Luis Rodríguez Zapatero and European Commission president Jose Manuel Durao Barroso said they were confident of a successful conclusion of trade and cooperation agreements the EU is currently in the process of negotiations with Latinamerica.

• Thursday, February 25th 2010 - 01:21 UTC

  World trade drops 12% in 2009; re-launching Doha round “imperative”

  

  World Trade Organisation director-general Pascal Lamy said on Wednesday that international trade fell by 12% in 2009, a marked deterioration on previous estimates which put the drop closer to 10%.

• Thursday, February 25th 2010 - 01:16 UTC

  Good prospects in 2010 for Latam commodities and energy exporters

  

  A report released this week in Mexico by the inter American Development Bank, (IDB) forecasts a good year for Latinamerican countries exports of commodities and energy but a slower recovery for Central America and the Caribbean more dependent on tourism and remittances.

• Wednesday, February 24th 2010 - 06:46 UTC

  Officially recession is over but Mexico’s economy contracted 6.5% in 2009

  

  Mexico’s GDP shrank by 6.5% last year amid the global recession, greater than the 6.2% of 1995 but the less severe end of the range of 6.5 percent to 7.5% decline forecast by the Mexican central bank.

• Wednesday, February 24th 2010 - 02:29 UTC

  Intra-Mercosur trade experienced one of its worst years in 2009

  

  Trade among Mercosur members plummeted in 2009 under the effects of the international slowdown which severely limited access to financing and made credit in the region harder to obtain, according to a report from the Inter American Development bank, IDB.