Economy

• Thursday, September 5th 2019 - 09:45 UTC

  Brazil soybean sales to China in August down 40% year on year

  

  Brazil shipped 4.1 million tons of soybeans to China in August, down 40% year on year, according to the Secretariat of Foreign Trade of Brazil, or Secex. Though Secex didn’t provide any reason for the sharp drop, but trade sources cited rising competition from Argentina and African swine fever among the reasons for the decline.

• Thursday, September 5th 2019 - 09:44 UTC

  Argentine farmers changing from corn to soybeans to cut costs

  

  Argentine farmers, anxious about an increasingly murky political outlook and economic turmoil, are turning toward soy over more expensive corn to cut costs, a shift that could impact next season’s harvest in one of the world’s top grain exporters.

• Thursday, September 5th 2019 - 09:39 UTC

  Brazilian Senate advancing with pensions' reform; forecasts of promulgation in a month's time

  

  Brazil’s Senate constitutional affairs committee on Wednesday approved by a vote of 18-7 a bill that would overhaul the social security system and save the federal government about 1 trillion reais (US$243 billion) over the next decade.

• Thursday, September 5th 2019 - 09:35 UTC

  Chile's central bank slashes benchmark interest rate to 2% to prop economy

  

  Chile’s central bank slashed the benchmark interest rate by 50 basis points to 2% on Tuesday, the lowest in 9 years, citing a sputtering economy hurt by global trade tensions.

• Thursday, September 5th 2019 - 09:20 UTC

  Lopez Obrador prepared to go after his (corrupt) predecessors and their administrations

  

  Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador said the public should have the right to choose whether ex-presidents should face trial once a bill has passed Congress making it easier to hold referendums.

• Thursday, September 5th 2019 - 09:19 UTC

  Soybean plantation in Brazil forecasted to grow at a much lower pace

  

  The area in Brazil to be planted with soybeans in the 2019-20 season, which starts this month, will grow by the slowest pace in 13 years as a global trade war and swine fever in China cloud the outlook for farmers, according to analysts at AgRural.

• Thursday, September 5th 2019 - 08:56 UTC

  Britain's Conservative parties imploding as decades of infighting are coming to an end

  

  Britain's ruling Conservative Party is imploding this week as a result of a no-holds-barred battle over Brexit that has seen the expulsion of 21 moderate MPs, including Winston Churchill's grandson, experts said.

• Wednesday, September 4th 2019 - 09:58 UTC

  Signs of budding of financial stability in Argentina: Peso stronger and country risk falls

  

  Argentina's peso surged on Tuesday, pumped up by Wall Street traders cheering President Mauricio Macri's capital controls that are aimed at protecting the beleaguered currency. The peso closed 5.39% higher at 55.98 per U.S. dollar, traders said, its strongest level in a week after a near-record low close on Friday.

• Wednesday, September 4th 2019 - 09:49 UTC

  Venezuelan military exercises along the Colombian border

  

  Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro on Tuesday ordered the armed forces to be on alert for a potential attack by Colombia's government and announced military exercises on the border amid the rearmament of a group of former guerrilla commanders.

• Wednesday, September 4th 2019 - 09:17 UTC

  Restructuring Ford's Sao Paulo truck plant means sacking 1.300 workers and lowering salaries of the remaining

  

  Brazilian automaker CAOA reached an initial agreement to buy Ford Motor Co's plant in Sao Bernardo do Campo, the companies said on Tuesday, but CAOA could slash 1,300 jobs, according to the union representing the plant's workers.