Economy

• Tuesday, June 9th 2009 - 12:50 UTC

  Spain to the rescue of banks with 9 billion Euros emergency fund

  

  The Spanish government plans to set up a 9 billion Euros emergency fund to prop up the country's weakest banks if other measures fail, Finance Minister Elena Salgado said in a Sunday interview with Madrid’s ABC.

• Monday, June 8th 2009 - 13:51 UTC

  Hamburg-Sud largest container vessel tested Montevideo port’s efficiency

  

  Hamburg Sud “Rio de la Plata”, the first of a newbuilding series of six identical vessels with a slot capacity of 5.900 containers (and 1.365 reefer container plugs) called last month in Montevideo.

• Saturday, June 6th 2009 - 14:36 UTC

  US job losses moderating but May rate reached 9.4%

  

  The US White House economic adviser Christina Romer on Friday said that May payrolls data was consistent with a trend of moderating job losses, but the unemployment rate would stay high for a while.

• Saturday, June 6th 2009 - 14:32 UTC

  Chilean inflation below target; economy heading for recession

  

  Chile's consumer price index fell a bigger-than-expected 0.3% in May after a fall of 0.2% in April, the National Statistics Institute reported on Friday.
  On an annual basis, inflation for the 12 months through May slowed to 3%, the Central Bank's target rate -- from 4.5% for the year through April. In the first five months of 2009, inflation is down to minus 1.1%.

• Friday, June 5th 2009 - 13:13 UTC

  ECB anticipates steep GDP fall and “stabilization phase” in 2010

  

  In a move which was widely expected, the European Central Bank (ECB) elected to keep interest rates for the euro zone on hold at 1% and announced that the planned purchase of 60 billion Euros in company bonds will commence in July.

• Friday, June 5th 2009 - 13:11 UTC

  Bank of England keep rates and quantitative easing unchanged

  

  The Bank of England Monetary Policy Committee voted Thursday to maintain the official rate unchanged at 0.5% for the third month in a row, but no fresh measures to stimulate the economy were announced.

• Friday, June 5th 2009 - 13:08 UTC

  Raul Castro removes architect of the “convertible peso”

  

  The head of Cuba's central bank Francisco Soberón has resigned after holding the job for fifteen years. He was replaced by Ernesto Medina who heads Banco Financiero Internacional, one of Cuba's biggest banks, according to an official announcement read on Thursday evening news.

• Friday, June 5th 2009 - 08:09 UTC

  Short of dollars, Venezuela tightens currency exchange controls

  

  Venezuela tightened currency-exchange controls this week cutting in half the amount of dollars that residents may obtain through the government to send to relatives abroad according to Official Gazette.

• Friday, June 5th 2009 - 04:34 UTC

  Paraguay meat exports down 25% in first five months of 2009

  

  Paraguay meat exports totaled 245 million US dollars in the first five months of the year, which represents a 25% decline compared to the same period a year ago (328 million US dollars), according to the latest official reports.

• Friday, June 5th 2009 - 04:32 UTC

  Auto sales in Brazil rose 5.4% in May from April

  

  Automobile sales in Brazil rose 5.4% in May from April, rebounding after a sharp decline the previous month, the national automakers' association Anfavea said on Thursday