Argentina's foreign trade last year reached a record 100.7 billion US dollars with a surplus of 11.154 billion US dollars according to the latest release from the Statistics and Census Institute, Indec.
Struggling bank Northern Rock PLC will be nationalized after the British government rejected two private takeover bids, Chancellor of the Exchequer Alistair Darling said Sunday. Darling told a news conference that the ailing mortgage lender would be placed under temporary public ownership because both private proposals had failed to meet the government's criteria for protecting taxpayers.
The Qatar Investment Authority purchases shares from Credit Suisse and is planning to invest up to 15 billion US dollars in European and US banks in the next twelve months, announced Monday Qatar Prime Minister according to Bloomberg News.
Japanese and South Korean steel mills have agreed to pay Brazilian miner Vale do Rio Doce 65% more for iron ore this year. Japan's Nippon Steel and South Korea's Posco said they would pay Vale 78.90 US dollars a ton from April.
Soy beans has become the main commodity of Argentina's rich farmland displacing other traditional industries such as cattle breeding and dairy farming, according to studies and statistics from the country's main breeders organization the Rural Society.
United States Federal Reserve chief Ben Bernanke told Congress on Thursday that the US economic outlook had deteriorated but pointed out that the Fed will act in a timely manner.
A United States House of Representatives panel approved Thursday a ten month extension for a trade programme providing reduced tariffs for exports from the four Andean nations of Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador and Peru.
The German Hamburg based publication Oil World has cut its estimate of the Brazilian 2007/08 soy crop to 59.3 million tons, down from the previous 59.8 million tons.
China's trade surplus soared 22.7% in January as the economy continued to boom despite efforts to cool the rate of growth, official figures have shown. The gap between what China exports and what it imports grew to 22.7 billion US dollars last month, 15.9 billion a year earlier.
Soaring international cereal prices and freight rates are projected to increase import bills for the world's poorest countries 35% for the second year running affecting the most vulnerable populations, points out FAO in its latest Crop Prospects and Food Situation report.