Brazil’s congressional committee on pension reform began debating a revised bill, as president Jair Bolsonaro urged lawmakers to rethink their move to drop his plan to introduce a retirement system based on private savings accounts.
Argentina's unemployment rate rose to 10.1% in the first quarter from 9.1% in the first three months of last year, the official INDEC statistics agency said. This is the highest level since current president Mauricio Macri took office, and the worst in thirteen years.
Argentina’s economy contracted 5.8% in the first quarter of 2019, the country’s statistics agency said on Wednesday, a reflection of the biting recession that has hammered domestic consumption and production.
Brazilian miner Vale SA said on Wednesday that it will fully resume operations at its Brucutu mine within 72 hours after an appeals court overturned an earlier ruling that halted processing because of concern about the safety of a nearby dam.
A divided Federal Reserve held the line on interest rates Wednesday and indicated formally that no cuts are coming in 2019. The decision came amid divisions over what is ahead and still leaves open the possibility that policy loosening could happen before the end of the year depending on how conditions unfold.
Brazil’s central bank held its benchmark interest rate at a record-low 6.50% on Wednesday, as expected, holding back from signalling looser policy because of doubts on economic reforms. The scenario outlined by policymakers was one of anaemic economic growth and high levels of economic slack putting downward pressure on inflation at home, plus the prospect of interest rates coming down in major developed economies.
Latin American stocks and currencies surged on Tuesday with a dovish boost from the European Central Bank and positive headlines from the U.S.-China trade tensions boosting sentiment.
A court in Sao Paulo on Tuesday accepted a request by Brazilian conglomerate Odebrecht to begin a corporate recovery procedure aimed at fending off bankruptcy at the scandal-tainted group.
The Brazilian government’s plans to overhaul its pension system can still be saved if lawmakers reverse changes to transition rules and concessions to legislative aides, according to Economy Minister Paulo Guedes.
Brazilian state-run oil firm Petrobras has made natural gas discoveries in six deep-water fields in the Sergipe Basin, it said in a regulatory filing on Monday.