Economy

• Thursday, February 19th 2009 - 20:00 UTC

  Buenos Aires stock market downgraded to “frontier index”

  

  MSCI Barra a leading stock market index provider has decided to remove Argentina from its emerging market index and place it in its frontier markets index. The frontier markets index contains stocks from countries considered not sufficiently developed to be eligible for MSCI Barra's emerging markets index.

• Wednesday, February 18th 2009 - 20:00 UTC

  IMF insists main immediate goal is to clean-up banks

  

  The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has warned that global recovery efforts are being undermined by the presence of “toxic” assets on banks' balance sheets. IMF managing director Dominique Strauss-Kahn said in an interview to French radio France-Inter that this undercuts stimulus efforts by various governments.

• Wednesday, February 18th 2009 - 20:00 UTC

  UK annual inflation falls to 3% in Jan; deflation fears

  

  A smaller-than-expected drop in inflation has failed to ease fears that the UK could soon be in the grip of deflation. The UK Office for National Statistics (ONS) data revealed a fall in the Consumer Prices Index (CPI) to 3% in January from 3.1% in December, which was far lower than experts had predicted.

• Wednesday, February 18th 2009 - 20:00 UTC

  Beijing wants closer political and trade links with Latam

  

  Chinese Vice-president Xi Jinping currently in Venezuela, the fourth leg of a regional tour hailed the vigorous growth in relations between China and Latin America in recent years and described the pace of cooperation as “unprecedented”, according to reports from Beijing news agencies.

• Wednesday, February 18th 2009 - 20:00 UTC

  Knighted billionaire faces “Ponzi-wicket” fraud charges

  

  Billionaire financier and cricket entrepreneur Sir Allen Stanford has been charged by US regulators over an alleged multi-billion dollar fraud. The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) filed a complaint in a Dallas Court against Sir Allen and three of his companies for “orchestrating a fraudulent, multi-billion dollar investment scheme”.

• Tuesday, February 17th 2009 - 20:00 UTC

  Doubts about Uruguay's second pulp mill project

  Spanish pulp maker Ence has narrowed a search for a partner in its 1.6 billion US dollars paper mill in Uruguay to four foreign players as it struggles with huge debt, tight credit and an ailing European paper industry, reports Reuter's office in Madrid.

• Tuesday, February 17th 2009 - 20:00 UTC

  Brazilian metal unions accept job stability for salary cuts

  Brazil metalworkers unions from the country's powerhouse, Sao Paulo state, have agreed to salary and working hours cuts in an attempt to save 16.300 jobs, according to industry sources.

• Tuesday, February 17th 2009 - 20:00 UTC

  ENCE confirms freezing of Uruguay pull plant project

  

  Spanish pulp company ENCE confirmed to Uruguayan officials that they are freezing the construction of the one million plus tons plant project in Punta Pereira until they find an associate, but discarded any chances of abandoning the whole operation, reports the Montevideo press.

• Monday, February 16th 2009 - 20:00 UTC

  Argentine GDP expansion in 4Q lowest in five years

  

  The Argentine economy expanded 4.9% in the last quarter of 2008 compared to the same period a year earlier and dropped 0.3% from the 2008 third quarter. This would mean the slowest expansion in five years, according to the latest figures released by the controversial Statistics Institute, Indec

• Monday, February 16th 2009 - 20:00 UTC

  Suggestions of more ECB/Fed exchange rate cooperation

  

  Robert Mundell, the Nobel Laureate whose research helped set the foundation for the creation of the Euro, said the US and Europe should cooperate to prevent exchange-rate swings from worsening the global recession.