
British Airways parent International Consolidated Airlines Group (IAG) has pledged to push through a plan to shrink Spanish arm Iberia by 15% and deliver a profit rebound this year following a group-wide loss last year.

Mexico’s Carlos Slim, probably the world’s richest man according to Forbes has referred to Argentina with certain irony when he was asked about the current foreign currency restrictions and changing regulatory framework implemented by the government of President Cristina Fernandez.

Brazil’s Bovespa-index futures declined with the equity gauge poised for its biggest monthly drop since May, after iron-ore producer Vale SA posted a record loss in the fourth quarter.

Spanish energy giant Repsol SA said Tuesday that it agreed to sell a package of liquefied natural gas assets to Royal Dutch Shell Plc in a transaction valued at 6.65 billion dollars. Shell will pay 4.4bn in cash and assume 2.25bn in debt, Repsol said in a regulatory filing.

GeoPark Holdings has revealed the discovery of the new Palos Quemados gas field on the Tranquilo block in Chile in the southern region of Magallanes. The Palos Quemados field is the first gas discovery in the Tranquilo Block by GeoPark and the first hydrocarbon discovery in the Magallanes Fold and Thrust Belt in more than 40 years.

India's trade with Latin America has gone down in 2012 in comparison to 2011. This is the second time the trade went down in the last decade when it was steadily growing. The earlier decline was in 2009 at the height of global crisis. Trade with the top seven countries of the region declined 15% from 25.274bn dollars in 2011 to 21.302bn in 2012.

The Falkland Islands government at a public meeting defended their position of not including in the annual budget what they described as ‘windfalls’ from fishing and oil and instead adding the ‘exceptional” excess revenue to the Consolidated Fund.

Brazil and Russia signed several agreements in different fields geared to increase trade and to advance in defense, energy and agriculture cooperation, including the purchase of Russian anti aircraft missile batteries on condition that Moscow agrees to transfer technology.

President Evo Morales said on Thursday that Repsol and the other multinational companies operating in Bolivia should not fear nationalization since his government only appeals to that extreme when corporations think in ‘looting’ instead of investing.

Mercosur will retake next March technical discussions for a new proposal to be presented to the European Union for a trade and cooperation agreement, announced Argentine Foreign minister Hector Timerman next to his peer Antonio Patriota following bilateral talks on Wednesday in Rio do Janeiro.