The US dollar is expected to open with a strong push in the Chilean money market on Monday having closed on Friday above the benchmark of 500 Chilean pesos, the highest so far this year.
The bear market in Chinese stocks deepened on Friday as the main index tumbled 3% to a new 15-month closing low, 13.89% down over the week, the biggest weekly drop since 1996.
New Zealand rural services company PGG Wrightson continues to expand in South America. The NZX-listed company announced the purchase of a 51% stake in Romualdo Rodriguez , a Uruguay-based livestock, wool and rural real estate business.
London's prestigious Financial Times has published a scathing report on Argentina's financial situation and the loss of confidence in the current government which it argues has brought the specter of a new default closer.
Inflation in the United States rose at its fastest pace for six months in May because of sharply higher energy costs. Consumer prices rose 0.6% last month, government figures showed, the steepest monthly increase since last November.
Argentina is unlikely to fulfill its contract to supply the European Union with 28,000 tonnes of boneless top prime cuts of beef, also known as Hilton cuts, according to government and meat industry sources.
Latin American and Caribbean economies will start to slow in the second half of this year and possibly into 2009 because of the rise in oil and food prices, the United Nations Latinamerican Economic Commission, Cepal said on Friday.
The London Stock Exchange is very much interested in having Argentine companies join the market since Argentina has excellent conditions: natural resources, technology and a trained population, according to Graham Dallas, senior manager from LSE currently visiting Buenos Aires to promote London's financial markets.
In what some experts call Raúl Castro's boldest break yet from socialism, Cuban state companies have until August to overhaul their salary structures to one that pays hard-workers more than slackers, the government newspaper reported Wednesday.
Corn prices hit new highs this week after the US Department of Agriculture forecast that output would fall because of poor weather. Corn reached a record price of above 7 US dollars a bushel for July delivery on the Chicago Board of Trade after the government cut its forecasts for the 2008 yield by 3%.