
The global recession will have an impact on Argentine exports which are forecasted to fall an estimated 20% this year to 55 billion US dollars, compared to last year. However since imports have also plummeted the trade surplus in July grew 35% (1.3 billion) totalling 11.2 billion US dollars in the first seven months of the year.

German economic growth is likely to gain traction in the coming months, the nation's influential central bank, the Bundesbank, said Thursday after Europe's biggest economy unexpectedly climbed out of recession during the second quarter.

Mexico's economy plunged 10.3% in the second quarter its deepest contraction on record as shrinking exports forced factories to slash production and cut jobs and the tourism industry was knocked out by the A/H1N1 virus flu.

Argentina and Brazil signed Wednesday an agreement to swap domestic currencies for the equivalent of a total 1.8 billion US dollars, which could be used to increase international reserves. The accord was described as an important effort towards “financial integration” in the framework of Mercosur.

Economics Nobel Prize Paul Krugman warned Wednesday that global real recovery will take time and that he’d be surprised to see within that scenario an improvement in the labour market. However he was upbeat about Latinamerica which he anticipated will recover faster that developed countries, although behind Asia.

Oslo, Zurich, Copenhagen, Geneva, Tokyo and New York are considered the world's most expensive cities based on a standardized basket of 122 goods and services from the UBS “Prices and Earnings” survey.

Chile’s economy shrank by 4.5% in the second quarter of this year, faring just slightly worse than the 4.4% GDP drop anticipated by economists, the Central Bank reported this week.

Brazil, Chile, Colombia and Peru are in the process of economic recovery, while Argentina, Bolivia, Ecuador, Paraguay, Uruguay and Venezuela are in a recessive phase according to a report released Wednesday and jointly drafted by Brazil’s Getulio Vargas Foundation and the University of Munich.

US billionaire Warren Buffett said that the US economy appears to be recovering, though the enormous dosages of monetary medicine used to fix it might pose a threat as ominous as last year's financial crisis itself.

The world has begun to recover from recession but the process will not be simple, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) has warned. The recession has left deep scars which will affect both supply and demand for many years to come according to IMF chief economist, Olivier Blanchard.