Chinese President Hu Jintao offered his nation's economic muscle to help Latin America weather global economic turmoil, in a speech on Thursday in Peru that marked another step in Beijing's campaign to raise its profile in the region.
Plummeting prices for copper and molybdenum, Chile's main exports, are expected to have a negative impact on the country's finances and for the first time in six years, in 2009, the country could end with a budget deficit.
Gross domestic product (GDP) in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development OECD area declined by 0.1% in the third quarter of 2008, the first fall in seven years, according to preliminary estimates.
Shareholders in Royal Bank of Scotland are to vote on a £20 billion bail-out plan which could put nearly 60% of the company in public hands. RBS, one of the worst hit by the banking turmoil, has called a general meeting in Edinburgh to approve the rescue.
European Union farm ministers have agreed to reform agricultural policy by shifting more subsidies away from production and liberalising the dairy market. The deal on reforming the Common Agricultural Policy came on Thursday after marathon all-night talks.
A world economic confidence index released Thursday dropped to its lowest level in 20 years amid further news of heavy losses on global markets and an ongoing crisis among the world's carmakers.

For the first time a global economic crisis will not hit Latinamerica and in 2009 the region's economy will experience positive growth in the range of 2%, according to the president of one of Spain's leading banks.

The Argentina's Agriculture Secretariat announced that it expects a record 18 million hectares of soybean for the coming 2008/09 soybean area, up from 16.6 million hectares a year ago.

A free trade agreement to be signed by China and Peru in March will go into effect in the second half of 2009, if everything goes as planned, the Chinese Ministry of Commerce announced.

Spain is likely to slip into recession in the fourth quarter and stay there during 2009, Bank of Spain governor Miguel Angel Fernandez Ordonez said on Wednesday in Madrid.