Economy

• Wednesday, September 10th 2014 - 07:22 UTC

  Cuba restricts personal importation of foreign goods, “to curb abuses”

  

  Cuba has implemented new rules that will restrict the personal importation of foreign goods into the country except where locally made items are expensive and scarce.

• Wednesday, September 10th 2014 - 06:59 UTC

  Argentina plays the China card to bolster reserves: 800m pledged in first tranche

  

  The Argentine Central Bank foreign reserves would be bolstered this year with up to 800 million dollars in Yuans transferred by China due to the first tranche of the money of the swap agreement signed between both countries, according to banking sources in Buenos Aires.

• Wednesday, September 10th 2014 - 06:22 UTC

  Cristina Fernandez celebrates the UN assembly vote: “we have to feel proud”

  

  Argentine President Cristina Fernández praised on Tuesday the United Nations General Assembly approval of a project that proposes legal framework to regulate restructuring of foreign sovereign debt, saying “Argentina has set an international leading case” with the initiative.

• Wednesday, September 10th 2014 - 06:09 UTC

  UN assembly sides with Argentina votes to change sovereign debt restructuring

  

  The United Nations General Assembly voted overwhelmingly on Tuesday in favor of a legal framework that would help regulate restructuring of foreign sovereign debt, a project that was suggested by the Argentine government and presented before the assembly by the Group of 77 plus China.

• Wednesday, September 10th 2014 - 06:03 UTC

  World Bank commits 5bn dollars financial support for Argentina in 2015/2018

  

  The World Bank Group’s (WBG) Executive Directors discussed a new Country Partnership Strategy (CPS) for Argentina covering fiscal years 2015-2018 with financial commitments over the period expected to be in the range of 1 to 1.2 billion dollars per year plus 1.7bn for the private sector.

• Wednesday, September 10th 2014 - 05:01 UTC

  Moody's lowers Brazil's sovereign bond rating to 'negative' from 'stable'

  

  Moody's Investors Service lowered its outlook on Brazil's government bond rating to 'negative' from 'stable', saying the country's sustained low economic growth and worsening debt metrics reflected a risk of reduced creditworthiness.

• Tuesday, September 9th 2014 - 04:46 UTC

  Uruguay opens second pulp mill with annual production capacity of 1.45 million tons

  

  Uruguay officially inaugurated on Monday a second pulp mill, Montes del Plata, on the River Plate, belonging to Chile's Arauco and Swedish-Finnish Stora Enso, which is considered the largest single investment in the country and will have an annual production of 1.3 million tons.

• Tuesday, September 9th 2014 - 04:07 UTC

  Japan's economy contracted 1.8% in second quarter; fall blamed on consumer sales tax

  

  Japan's economy shrank 1.8% in the April-to-June period, worse than forecast and raising more questions about the government's economic policy. The official data confirmed that the world's third largest economy suffered its sharpest quarterly contraction since the 2011 earthquake disaster.

• Tuesday, September 9th 2014 - 04:00 UTC

  China exports up 9.4% in August over a year ago, but imports were down 2.4%

  

  China's latest export numbers rose by 9.4% in August from a year earlier, beating forecasts of about 8% growth. The official data showed imports dropped by 2.4% from the year before, though, which left the country with a record surplus of 49.8bn dollars.

• Tuesday, September 9th 2014 - 03:27 UTC

  Dilma confirms Finance minister Mantega is stepping down in October

  

  President of Brazil Dilma Rousseff has affirmed that current Finance minister Guido Mantega will not carry on in his post should the Workers' Party (PT) candidate win a second term as head of state in October's presidential elections.