Economy

• Sunday, May 17th 2009 - 13:12 UTC

  Private sector economists say Argentina is in recession

  

  Argentina's industrial production in April plunged 9.1% on the year, economic think tank Orlando J Ferreres & Asociados reported this week. The April drop follows a 9% decline during the first quarter of 2009 and a 5.6% drop during the fourth quarter of 2008, according to the report.

• Saturday, May 16th 2009 - 13:26 UTC

  US consumer prices in April remained unchanged

  

  US consumer prices were unchanged in April, but recorded their largest year-on-year drop for more than 50 years, official data showed. Meanwhile producer prices jumped more than expected pushed by the biggest rise in food costs in more than a year.

• Saturday, May 16th 2009 - 13:19 UTC

  Chilean Patagonia provides few bright spots of economic activity

  

  The southern tip of the Chilean Patagonia provided most of the few bright spots in the Chilean government’s latest Index of Regional Economic Activity (INACER), published this week by the National Statistical Institute.

• Saturday, May 16th 2009 - 13:15 UTC

  Euro zone first quarter contraction of 2.5% surprises economists

  

  The economies of the 16 countries of the Euro zone experienced its worst quarterly drop in GDP in the first three months of the year, shedding 2.5% according to a release from the EU statistics agency Eurostat.

• Saturday, May 16th 2009 - 13:03 UTC

  Lula da Silva promotes use of local currencies for trade

  

  China and Brazil should conduct business with each other in their own currencies instead of the dollar, a publication quoted Brazil's president Lula da Silva as saying ahead of his trip to Beijing next week.

• Saturday, May 16th 2009 - 10:37 UTC

  General Motors to close 1.100 dealerships

  

  General Motors, the US auto giant, has told 1.100 dealerships that they will be closed down as the company struggles to survive amid an economic crisis. The shutdowns are just part of a larger plan to shut 2.600 of its 6.200 dealerships as the car manufacturer makes cuts in an attempt to become profitable again. The move is likely to cause the loss of thousands of jobs across the US.

• Saturday, May 16th 2009 - 10:34 UTC

  Brazilian government admits lower growth for 2009

  

  Brazilian Finance Minister Guido Mantega admitted for the first time that Brazil's economic growth will likely fall in the 0 to 2% range in 2009, Brazilian media reported Friday.

• Friday, May 15th 2009 - 11:31 UTC

  Record contraction of the Spanish economy

  

  The Spanish economy slid deeper into recession in the first quarter of this year, official data showed on Thursday revealing that output shrank by 1.8% from the level in the previous quarter. On an annualized basis the contraction was a record 2.9%, the steepest in half a century.

• Friday, May 15th 2009 - 09:15 UTC

  US Treasury moves to regulate complex (lethal) financial instruments

  

  The United States Treasury wants more regulation of derivatives - the complex financial instruments that brought down some of Wall Street's biggest names. Proposals to be set out by Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner will call for an electronic system to monitor buying and selling in the market.

• Friday, May 15th 2009 - 02:46 UTC

  Inflation guess game in Argentina: anywhere from 0.3% to 1.8%

  

  Argentina's April inflation rate reached 0.3% and 5.7% in the last twelve months according to the latest release from the National Statistics Institute, Indec. The wholesale or production prices for the month was 0.5% and 1.7% since January, while the Construction Cost index rose 0.4% and 1%.