
Inflation in Latin America for the year 2021 was way above projections, the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) has said in a report issued from its Santiago headquarters.

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has urged Salvadorean President Nayib Bukele to drop the use of bitcoin as legal tender in the country, on the grounds that there are “great risks associated” with this practice. Bukele officially adopted bitcoin last September.

The Council of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) has decided to discuss the admission into the group of Argentina, Brazil, and Peru, it was announced Tuesday.

The IMF managing director warned that interest rate hikes by the Federal Reserve could have serious implications for counties with high levels of debt in dollars, cold water on already weak economic recoveries, or in the process of negotiating debts.

Brazilian economy minister Paulo Guedes said that inflation will become a long-term challenge for Western countries, since the beast is already out of the bottle, and central bankers have been caught sleeping at the driving wheel.

The Chinese economy expanded 8,1% in 2021, following the 2,2% of 2020, as steadily growing industrial production and exceptional trade performance offset a drop in retail sales. Still, that figure fell short of economists' expectations for an 8.4% growth and year on year growth rate fell to 4,9% in the third quarter and 4% in the fourth quarter.

The Argentine union of maritime workers SOMU Friday staged a protest at the Buquebús terminal in the port of Buenos Aires to keep ships from sailing off to Uruguay in demand of a due wage increase of 23% agreed upon last year.

In the last month of 2021, Argentina has recorded a total oil output of around 559,000 barrels per day (BPD), thus reaching the highest production for the country over the past nine years, it was reported Thursday.

Last October when Argentine president Alberto Fernandez left for Rome to the G20 leaders' summit, his office informed that he was expecting to meet with US president Joe Biden to among other issues address support for Argentina in its ongoing exhausting negotiations with the IMF.

Next January 27, the president-elect of Honduras in Central America, a country known to live off the drugs trade and international aid will be taking office. Xiomara Castro, the first woman president of the country, and an icon of the left-wing progressive parties of Latin America promised during her campaign that her administration would cut diplomatic ties with Taiwan and establish full relations with Beijing, as recently happened in neighboring Nicaragua.