Economy

• Monday, October 12th 2015 - 06:14 UTC

  Levy confident congress will finally approve austerity measures to help Brazil's economy

  

  The president Dilma Rousseff administration is geared to “preparing the country to deal with a new international reality”, Brazilian Finance Minister Joaquim Levy told Reuters in an interview on Saturday.

• Monday, October 12th 2015 - 06:11 UTC

  Guyana now faced with refloated territorial claims from Suriname

  

  Less than a week after returning from the United Nations, where he raised concerns about Guyana’s border dispute with Venezuela, President David Granger was confronted with a similar issue involving Suriname.

• Saturday, October 10th 2015 - 06:27 UTC

  Global Unions call on IMF and World Bank should take recession threats seriously

  

  Given the Annual Meetings of the International Monetary Fund and World Bank taking place in Lima, Peru, the International Trade Union Conference, ITUC, and its Global Unions partners call on the international financial institutions to adopt policies that counter the global economic slowdown.

• Friday, October 9th 2015 - 07:21 UTC

  Fed close to increasing rate, according to minutes; IMF again calls on Yellen for prudence

  

  The US Federal Reserve believes the US economy was close to warranting an interest rate hike in September but policymakers decided it was prudent to wait for evidence a global economic slowdown was not knocking United States off course.

• Thursday, October 8th 2015 - 18:51 UTC

  Brazilian congress again exposes President Rousseff's political weakness

  

  Brazil's Congress on Wednesday postponed for a fourth time voting on whether to overrule President Dilma Rousseff's vetoes of two spending bills in a defeat for her government as it scrambles for support to rebalance overdrawn public accounts.

• Thursday, October 8th 2015 - 12:08 UTC

  Brazil's inflation eases in September but still too close to two digits

  

  Inflation in Brazil has eased for second consecutive month, which takes some pressure of the central bank to hike rates further. The Real has also gained pace last month after the central bank promised to do whatever it takes to stem the Brazilian currency's slide. The Real has strengthened to 3.84 per dollar after touching new all-time high of 4.247 per dollar only a couple of weeks ago.

• Thursday, October 8th 2015 - 10:21 UTC

  With Brazil contracting 3%, Latin America's economy will shrink 0.3%, says IMF report

  

  The International Monetary Fund said today that it now expects Latin America's economy to shrink 0.3% this year instead of growing 0.5%, largely due to a steep recession in Brazil and slumping commodity prices. It would be the first recession for the Latin American and Caribbean region since 2009.

• Wednesday, October 7th 2015 - 10:21 UTC

  Brazil's September auto production down 42.1% compared to a year ago

  

  Brazil’s auto industry produced 174,200 units last month, down 19.5% from August and a whopping 42.1% from September 2014, the national Association of Car Manufacturers, or Anfavea, said on Tuesday.

• Wednesday, October 7th 2015 - 02:11 UTC

  Japan's Mitsui Lines takes charge of re-gasifying unit project in Uruguay

  

  Japan's Mitsui O.S.K. Lines, Ltd. announced on Wednesday that the company has reached a basic agreement with Gas Sayago, a joint venture between Uruguay’s state oil company ANCAP and state power company UTE, to continue the floating storage and re-gasification unit (FSRU) project led by Gas Sayago and being built in Montevideo.

• Tuesday, October 6th 2015 - 13:02 UTC

  Debt-overwhelmed Petrobras cuts further capital spending plans for this year and 2016

  

  Petrobras struggling with the biggest debt load among global oil firms, on Monday cut $11 billion from capital spending plans for this year and next as Brazil's currency and oil prices slump. Petrobras plans to cut 2015 investment by 11% to $25 billion from the previous $28 billion, according to a statement.