Brazilian Agriculture Minister Reinhold Stephanes anticipated a record 2008/09 grain crop close to 144.5 million tons which would mark a new record, and discarded that the global financial crisis would have an impact on agriculture on the short term.
In a surprise move, which reverberated across the international community, Russia issued a four billion Euro state loan to Iceland. The statement on Russia's central bank website reads that the loan maturing in three-four years and an interest rate as low as 30-50 basis points above Libor has been given the green light by Prime Minister Vladimir Putin.
Finance ministers from leading industrialised nations have pledged action to tackle the financial crisis after a torrid week on stock markets. The G7 nations said they would take decisive action and use all available tools, after a meeting in Washington.
They issued a five-point plan aimed at unfreezing the flow of credit.
The Group of Seven finance ministers and central governors released on Friday, following their meeting in Washington, the following plan of action to address financial disruptions
Following on a joint initiative from United States and Brazil the Group of 20, or G-20, will be holding an extraordinary meeting next Saturday in Washington to address the current financial global crisis and its impact on emerging economies.
United States government's debts have ballooned so badly the National Debt Clock in New York has run out of digits to record the spiraling figure.
Latin-American countries moved quickly this week to face the global financial crisis and came out with a battery of measures pumping billions of US dollars to try and contain the threat of recession.
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has activated an emergency finance mechanism to help countries hit by the financial crisis. IMF chief Dominique Strauss-Khan said the lending procedure would allow the IMF to react quickly to support countries facing funding problems.
The financial crisis is hurting automotive dealers across United States and could contribute to an estimated 700 dealerships closing this year, the US National Automobile Dealers Association Chairwoman Annette Sykora said on Tuesday.
Latinamerican markets finished sharply lower on Tuesday under pressure from the slide on Wall Street, falling commodity prices and uncertainty about the future. Growth forecasts have also been downgraded.