The intense six month drought suffered by Uruguay this summer cost the farming sector an estimated 868 million US dollars and the loss of 12.800 jobs according to a report from the country’s main farmers’ organization. The loss breaks down to 75% livestock; 11% agriculture; 11% dairy farming and 3% citrus plantations.
Brazilian unemployment remained steady with a growing tendency in March, having reached the highest since September 2007, 9%, reported the country’s Statistics and Geography Institute, Ibge.
Uruguay will experience a serious deterioration of its exports in 2009 with impacts on the rest of the economy and growth limited to a mere 0.2%, according to The Economist Intelligence Unit, EIU.
In spite of a considerable slowdown this year, China is poised to become in 2010 the world’s second largest economy, behind United States and ahead of Japan, according to the IMF World Economic Outlook released this week.
The UK economy shrank 1.9% in the first three months of 2009, according to gross domestic product (GDP) data from the Office for National Statistics. The contraction was much worse than had been expected and was the biggest three-month decline in GDP since the third quarter of 1979.
Spain's jobless rate rose sharply, to 17.36% in the first quarter of 2009 with more than 4 million people out of work, the government said Friday. Nearly half of the 4 million lost their jobs in the past year, the National Statistics Institute pointed out
Brazil and other emerging economies are willing to provide additional financing to the International Monetary Fund but they are still not happy with the capitalization mechanism proposed by the institution, Finance Minister Guido Mantega said on Thursday.
Ecuador will not change its offer to buy back 3.2 billion of defaulted debt at a sharp discount (70%), and appealed to investors to be mindful of its economic problems, Finance Minister Elsa Viteri said in a letter to bondholders, according to press reports from Quito.
Mercosur is going through “one of its worst moments” and has several “pending critical issues” such as “free circulation of goods and people and mitigating asymmetries” said Walter Cancela head of Uruguay’s Economic Affairs, Integration and Mercosur Office.
Chile's GDP will likely grow a marginal 0.1% on the year in 2009, recovering to a 3% in 2010, said the International Monetary Fund in its April World Economic Outlook released Wednesday. The IMF outlook is more optimistic than local analysts' outlook who forecast the Chilean economy will contract 0.5% this year.