Economy

• 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%.

• Thursday, May 14th 2009 - 12:21 UTC

  Brazil plans to tax interests on savings above 50.000 Reales

  

  Brazil plans to begin taxing interest on some savings accounts and may lower taxes on fixed-income funds to maintain demand for government bonds as the Central Bank cuts the benchmark rate.

• Thursday, May 14th 2009 - 12:11 UTC

  Chile’s Central bank slashes growth estimate

  

  Chile's economy could shrink by as much as 0.75 percent this year, its first annual contraction in a decade, as the global crisis hits consumer spending and investment, the Central Bank announced on Wednesday. The bank slashed its 2009 GDP forecast to a range between a 0.75% contraction and a 0.25% expansion.

• Thursday, May 14th 2009 - 09:57 UTC

  The Economist sceptical about the crisis having bottomed out

  

  The end of the economic crisis and the return to the growth path are still distant according to the Economist Intelligence Unit, EIU, which predicts the global economy will contract 1.8% in 2009.

• Thursday, May 14th 2009 - 08:07 UTC

  British MPs handing back money “milked” out of the system

  

  British PM Gordon Brown backed the “extreme but necessary” measure last night as senior Labour figures started following in the footsteps of Tory frontbenchers by handing over money that they were seen to have “milked” out of the system.