Economy

• Monday, May 11th 2009 - 10:31 UTC

  British banks CEOs dampen expectations of a swift recovery

  

  Bad debts at part-nationalised UK Royal Bank of Scotland could soar to almost £12 billion this year, the bank has said. RBS, which is 70.3% owned by the British taxpayer, posted loans losses of £2.9 billion for the first quarter of 2009, but directors said full-year bad debts could be “at least” four times as high.

• Monday, May 11th 2009 - 10:25 UTC

  New mine increases Chile’s state-owned copper company reserves by 20%

  

  Chilean state-owned mining company CODELCO announced last week its discovery of a new mine site near its existing División Andina site (Region V), some 80 kilometres north of Santiago.

• Monday, May 11th 2009 - 08:07 UTC

  Peru private sector confident the crisis “has reached the bottom”

  

  Peru’s main private business confederation believes the current economic crisis “has reached the bottom” in the country and forecasts the economy will experience an annual expansion of 3.5%.

• Saturday, May 9th 2009 - 07:40 UTC

  Ten US leading banks need 74.6 billion in extra funds

  

  US bank Wells Fargo has said it plans to raise 7.5 billion US dollars from selling new shares, a day after the US Treasury said 10 banks needed to boost reserves. Morgan Stanley is also hoping to raise 3.5 billion from share sales. Bank of America said it planned to sell assets and raise capital to secure the 33.9 billion it needs.

• Saturday, May 9th 2009 - 07:22 UTC

  Bank of the South takes off with 7 billion USD initial capital

  

  Finance ministers from Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Ecuador, Paraguay, Uruguay and Venezuela reached Friday in Buenos Aires the definitive agreement for the launching of the Bank of the South, a multilateral organization to help fund development and infrastructure projects.

• Saturday, May 9th 2009 - 06:34 UTC

  April car sales in Brazil fall 13.7% from the previous month

  

  Automobile sales in Brazil fell 13.7% in April from the previous month as consumer demand waned after four straight months of gains, the national automakers' association Anfavea said on Friday. Sales also fell 10.3% from April 2008 to 234.400 and automobile output dropped 6.9% month-on-month in April and was down 15.8% from a year earlier to 254.700 units.

• Friday, May 8th 2009 - 10:25 UTC

  Brazil central bankers see margin to further cut interest rates

  

  Brazilian central bank policy makers said the global economic slump may favour the ongoing reduction of interest rates without jeopardizing the inflation target, according to the minutes of the April 28-29 monetary policy meeting posted on the bank’s Web site.

• Friday, May 8th 2009 - 10:15 UTC

  An estimated 34 billion US dollars have fled from Argentina

  

  The Argentine Central Bank must ensure that the flight of capital does not erode the “wealth of the country”, warned a former head of the bank, who revealed that since the beginning of the crisis 34 billion US dollars had fled from South America’s second largest economy.

• Friday, May 8th 2009 - 04:48 UTC

  European central banks lost 40 billion USD with gold sales

  

  The decision by central banks across Europe to sell gold reserves over the last ten years has left them 40 billion US dollars worse-off, the Financial Times reported Thursday.

• Friday, May 8th 2009 - 04:46 UTC

  IMF forecasts “relatively good” performance for Latam economy

  

  Economic activity in Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC), sharply affected by the global economic crisis, is expected to contract by 1.5% in 2009, from about 4.5% growth in 2008, before rebounding next year, according to the latest forecast for the region by the International Monetary Fund.